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SUSPENSE 















SUSPENSE 

Sy Henry Seton Merriman 

Author of The Sowers; In Kedar’s 
Tents, Roden’s Corner, etc. 



Mew 12 orK, DODD, MEAD 
AND COMPANY, 1899 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED* 

" PZ3 

Library of CongrM* A 

Office of the 

NOV 2 3 1899 ^ 


Begl*ter of Copyrights 



Revised and Authorized Edition 


Copyright , /<?99 

By Dodd, Mead and Compant 


first copy, 

f 

A™ •0''b.'"5S. 


Preface 


“SUSPENSE” is an early and immature attempt 
which has at some trouble and expense been 
withdrawn from circulation in England. See- 
ing that under existing copyright law the 
book is unprotected in the United States from 
the unauthorized enterprise of certain pub- 
lishers, the author finds himself practically 
forced to issue an edition of this and other 

k 

early works. He does this in full consciousness 
of a hundred defects which the most careful 
revision cannot eliminate. The book has been 
corrected by the author, who now submits it to 
the generosity of the critic and the good sense 
of the reader with the assurance that had he 
been in a position to choose he would not have 
sought this indulgence. 


Henry Seton Merriman. 


# 


Contents 


Chapter Page 

I. On Board the “Hermione” ... i 

II. The Exception 12 

III. A Shadow 28 

IV. A Sportsman’s Death 43 

V. Bad News 52 

VI. Sisters 65 

VII. Alice Returns 78 

VIII. To the Front 97 

IX. Under Fire 107 

X. Trist Acts 121 

XI. The Sport of Fate 134 

XII. Breaking It 147 

XIII. A Lesson 157 

XIV. Hicks’ Secret 170 

XV. Wyl’s Hall . . 182 

XVI. Diplomacy 189 


VI 


Contents 


Chapter Page 

XVII. Good-bye ! 204 

XVIII. At Work 222 

XIX. Plevna . . 237 

XX. The Puzzle of Life. . . . . 250 

XXI. The End of it All 264 

1 


SUSPENSE 

* 

CHAPTER I 

ON BOARD THE “ HERMIONE ” 

“ T3 REND A, what are you thinking 
JD about?" 

It was hardly a question. The into- 
nation of Mrs. Wylie’s voice was by no 
means interrogative, and she returned 
placidly to the perusal of her novel with- 
out awaiting a reply. The ladies had been 
reading silently for at least an hour, until 
the younger of the two allowed her book 
to lie unheeded on her knee, while the 
pages fluttered in the breeze. 

The remark called forth by this action 
was accepted literally and as a question. 

“ I was thinking of Theo Trist,” replied 

i 


2 


Suspense 

the girl gravely. She did not meet her 
companion’s gaze, but looked wistfully 
across the fjord towards the bleak dismal 
cliffs. 

Mrs. Wylie closed her novel on one 
white plump finger and drummed idly 
upon the back of it with the other 
hand. In movement and repose alike 
this lady was essentially comfortable. 
Her presence suggested contentment 
and prosperity amidst the most unpro- 
pitious environments. The Hermione, 
her temporary home, a broad, slow-sail- 
ing schooner-yacht, was, below decks, 
conducted on the principles of a luxu- 
rious, roomy house. She had a wonder- 
ful way with her, this plump and smiling 
lady, of diffusing into the very atmos- 
phere a sense of readiness to meet all 
emergencies. The elements, even, seemed 
to bow to her. Overhead the winds 
might roar and moan aloud through stay 
and rigging — all around the waves might 
leap and throw themselves against the 
staunch low bulwarks of the yacht — - 


On Board the “ Hermione ” 


3 

but in the cabin was warm comfort ; and 
with it, dainty womanly ways. Mrs. 
Wylie proved most effectually that at sea, 
in fair weather and in foul, a woman can 
be a woman still. 

She now re-opened her book, but 
instead of reading, sat gazing thought- 
fully at the young girl. Presently she 
laughed musically and turned resolutely 
to the open page. 

“ Yes,” she murmured — confessing, as 
it were, that her thoughts had on former 
occasions been drawn in the same 
direction. “Yes. But, Brenda — I — 
should not advise you — to — think — of 
Theo Trist.” 

There are in the lives of most of us 
passing moments which leave a distinct 
impression upon the mind. Of all the 
million words we hear there are some 
trivial remarks which hold fast to the 
inner sinews of the great machine we call 
memory — a machine which rests not by 
night or day, in health or sickness, in 
prosperity or woe. Often it is a jest, or 


4 Suspense 

some weighty saying spoken in jest. 
There is no apparent reason why some 
words should be so distinctly remembered 
while others pass away from recollection; 
and yet small observations, interesting 
only in the passing moment, catch as it 
were in the mental wheel, and, adhering to 
the spokes, spin round with them, just as 
a mere muddy piece of paper may cling to 
the wheel of an emperor’s carriage and 
flutter through the cheering crowd, calling 
for universal attention. 

Brenda Gilholme listened to Mrs. 
Wylie’s laughing caution in a vague way, 
and there seemed to come into her mind 
an indefinite recollection. Certain it was 
that she had never heard the words before, 
but yet they were forebodingly familiar. 
The semi-bantering ring of the lady’s 
voice, the soft hum of the breeze through 
the rigging overhead, the ripple of the 
awning stretched tautly, and the regular 
plash of tiny wavelets beneath and all 
around, formed an entire harmony of 
sound which was instantaneously graved 


On Board the “ Hermione ” 


5 

on her memory, never to leave it from 
that day forth. 

Mrs. Wylie, having married happily 
herself, was of the firm opinion that 
marriages are made in heaven. She was 
too kind-hearted and too merciful to the 
human race to think of interfering in the 
work. Perhaps she felt that if heaven 
turned out such poor work, hers could not 
well be satisfactory. Be that, however, as 
it may, Mrs. Wylie was no match-maker. 
She held strange views — alas ! too rarely 
fostered — that if a man be worthy of a 
woman and love her truly, he should be 
able to win her for himself; and that if he 
cannot do this unaided he is better without 
her. 

Of course she knew that Theo Trist 
and Brenda were great friends. She was 
well aware that in some future time the 
friendship might turn to something else. 

Trist was twenty-eight and Brenda was 
nineteen, while both were in manner and 
appearance older than their years could 
warrant. Also was there another matter 


6 


Suspense 

of some weight. Brenda had a sister, a 
lovely unscrupulous coquette, two years 
older than herself. 

Alice Gilholme had been pleased to 
change her name and state in St. 
George’s, Hanover Square, earlier in the 
year, while the Hermione was yet in dry 
dock. Three weeks after the wedding, 
Theo Trist returned from abroad with 
his bland broad forehead tanned and 
brown. He expressed no surprise. In 
fact, he vouchsafed no opinion whatever. 
Had he met Captain Huston, the happy 
bridegroom ? Oh yes ! They had met 
in South Africa. That was all ! He 
never related details of that part of a 
difficult campaign which they had passed 
together. The laconic praise contained 
in the two words “ good soldier,” such 
as had been applied to many of his 
acquaintances, was not forthcoming. 

From a lady’s point of view, Alfred 
Woodruff Charles Huston was the beau- 
ideal of a soldier. Tall, straight and 
square shouldered, he carried his small 


On Board the “ Hermione ” 7 

head erect. His clear brown eyes were 
quick enough, his brown clean-cut face 
almost perfect in its outline. Indefati- 
gable at Sandown, Hurlingham, Good- 
wood, Ascot he had a pleasant way of 
appearing to know something about 
everyone and everything. But Theo 
Trist had not met him at any of these 
places or in fashionable London drawing- 
rooms later in the day. They had come 
together in South Africa in the course 
of a campaign, when both had laid aside 
the accessories of pleasure and were hard 
at work, each in his chosen groove. It 
was somewhat strange that he should 
never offer to discuss Captain Huston 
as a military man. 

“That fellow Huston,” a general officer 
had once said in an unguarded moment 
— “that fellow Huston, Trist, is the 
biggest duffer in the British Army! ” 

And Trist’s answer, given after careful 
consideration, was laconically severe : 

“Yes, I am afraid so.” 

But Alice Gilholme omitted to con- 


8 Suspense 

suit the general officer; and after all, if 
Captain Huston was no soldier, he was 
at least a gentleman, with elegant high- 
bred ways, and an empty high-bred head, 
containing just enough brain to find out 
the enjoyment of existence. The happy 
couple were now in India, where we will 
leave them. 

Whether the marriage of Alice Gilholme 
had been a severe blow to Theo Trist 
or no, it were hard to say. Mrs. Wylie 
even could give no opinion on the subject, 
and Brenda never mentioned it. There 
was no perceptible change in the man’s 
strange incongruous face when the news 
was broken to him without premonition 
in a crowded room. His life was essen- 
tially ruled by chance ; good or bad 
tidings were therefore no new things to 
him. 

The Hermione rose and fell slightly, 
almost imperceptibly, to the waves, and 
backwards and forwards across the spot- 
less deck Brenda Gilholme walked pen- 
sively. She was motherless, and her 


On Board the “ Hermione 


9 


father was entirely absorbed in political 
strife, being an English Home Ruler. 
This thoughtful girl had grown up in the 
shade of her sister’s beauty, and had 
perhaps suffered from the contiguity. 
She was pleased to consider herself a 
plain uninteresting girl, which was a 
mistake. 

Perhaps she was a discontented person. 
Her expression certainly warranted such a 
belief. Undoubtedly she thought too little 
of herself. In personal charms she com- 
pared unfavourably with her sister Alice, 
and in that small fact lay the secret of it 
all. Glory of any description unfortu- 
nately casts a reflection which is sure to 
be unpleasant either to the reflector or to 
the friends of that person. 

Had Brenda Gilholme been launched 
upon the troubled waters of society alone, 
she would probably have made a better 
place for herself there than her sister 
Alice ever reached ; but unfortunately she 
started in the world as Alice Gilholme’s 
sister. In a thousand ways clumsy and 


i o Suspense 

well-meaning men allowed her to define 
her own situation. 

“ Brenda,” Admiral Wylie used to say, 
with a loving twinkle of his intensely blue 
eyes, “ Brenda is a brick.” She was true 
and loyal ; a devoted sister, and a staunch 
friend. Had she loved her sister less, she 
would have carried a lighter heart through 
many a gay ball-room. She would have 
suffered less from — let us call it the mis- 
taken kindness of her sister’s friends. 
She would have thought more of herself 
and less of Alice. 

Brenda Gilholme knew too much. Her 
estimate of human existence at the age 
of nineteen was truer and deeper than 
that of her grandmother at the age of 
ninety. 

Presently she stopped walking, and 
stood beside the low rail, grasping an awn- 
ing-stanchion with one hand. The wist- 
ful, discontented look left her eyes, which 
were clear and blue, with long dark lashes, 
and in its place came an interested, keen 
expression. 


On Board the “ Hermione ” 1 1 

“ I think,” she said aloud, “ I see him 
coming. There is a small sail far away 
down the fjord.” 

Mrs. Wylie looked up vaguely. 

“ Yes,” she answered absently; “ I dare 
say you are right ! ” 


12 


Suspense 


CHAPTER II 


THE EXCEPTION 


HE Hermione lay at the head of that 



JL small branch of the sea called the 
Heimdalfjord. This long and narrow inlet 
is an insignificant branch of a greater 
fjord where steamers ply their irregular 
traffic ; where British tourists gaze with 
weary eyes at the towering rocks and 
bleak cliffs ; and where, during the long 
silent twilight winter, the winds howl and 
roar round the bare crags. On either side 
of the Heimdalfjord the gray hopeless 
cliffs rose a sheer two thousand feet, while 
the blue deep water lapped their base 
with scarce a ripple. The fjord lay be- 
tween the mighty barriers with a solemn 
sense of profundity in the stillness of its 
bosom. One could almost picture to one’s 
self the continuation of the steep incline 
into a great dark valley beneath the super- 


1 3 


The Exception 

ficial ripple, where mighty marine growths 
reared their brown branches up towards 
the dim light, never swaying to the ocean 
swell — where strange northern fishes and 
slow crawling things lived on unknown, 
unclassified. 

Amid such surroundings, upon the 
face of so large a nature, the Hermione 
looked incongruous. Her clean long 
spars, her white awning, the yellow 
gleam of her copper beneath the clear 
water, all suggested another world where 
comfort and small refinement live. Here 
all is of a rougher, larger stamp. Here 
man and his petty tastes are as nothing. 
The bleak and dismal mountains were 
not created for his habitation, for nothing 
grows there, and human ingenuity, human 
enterprise, can do naught with such stony 
chaos. 

On the entire Heimdalfjord there are 
but two boats — mere pinewood craft 
heavily tarred. One is owned by Hans 
Olsen, who lives far away at the point 
where the Sogn fjord begins, and the 


1 4 Suspense 

other belongs to Christian Nielsen, who 
farms the two acres of poor soil at the 
head of the Heimdalfjord. No steamer 
has ever churned the still waters; few 
yachts have ventured up to the head of 
the inlet, where there is no attraction to 
the sightseer. But Nielsen looked every 
year for the white sails of the Hermione , 
and with native conscientiousness re- 
frained from netting the river that ran 
past his brown log-hut. 

The river brought him in more money 
than his farm, and even at this out-of- 
the-world corner of the Heimdalfjord 
money and the lust of it are the chief 
movers of men’s hearts. Five hundred 
crowns a year was a sum worth thinking 
about, worth depriving one’s self of a 
little salmon for, which, after all, was 
plentiful enough when once the Hermione 
had cast anchor. 

Four miles down the fjord there was 
another break in the great wall of moun- 
tains, and a second river danced gaily 
down its narrow barren valley to the sea. 


The Exception 15 

From this river-mouth a small boat was 
now making its way under sail up the 
fjord. A tiny speck of white was all 
the girl could distinguish from the deck 
of the yacht, and she stood silently 
watching its approach until the form of 
the sailor sitting low in the bow of the 
small brown craft was discernible. 

The sun had set some time before, so 
that the water was in shadow, deep and 
blue ; but up on the hills and away to 
the south upon the distant snow-clad 
mountains a warm pink glow lay hazily. 
Deep purple vales of shade broke the 
line of cliffs abutting the water here and 
there. Where the hills closed together, 
five miles away (so that the fjord ap- 
peared to be a lake), there was a rich 
background of blue transparency through 
which the broken crags loomed vaguely. 
It was nearly nine o’clock, and this 
clear twilight was all the darkness that 
would come to the Heimdal that July 
night. 

The breeze held its own bravely against 


1 6 Suspense 

the soporific influence of Arctic sunset, 
and with full taut sail the dinghy splashed 
and gurgled through the waters. The 
steersman was invisible by reason of the 
reefless sail, but his handiwork was appa- 
rent and very good. 

“He’s driving her along!” muttered 
the steward, as he stood for a moment 
at the galley-door. 

“ The driving is like unto the driving 
of Jehu,” answered old Captain Barrow, 
who was smoking his evening pipe upon 
his own small piece of deck between the 
galley and the after-companion. 

Captain Barrow rarely missed an oppor- 
tunity of throwing at the head of the 
steward, who (like most good cooks) 
was a godless person, a Biblical quotation 
more or less correct. 

Before the silence had again been 
broken the dinghy came rushing on. 
Down went the tiller, and with shivering 
canvas the little boat swung round along- 
side. 

Beside the after-rail Brenda stood 


x 7 


The Exception 

motionless ; her eyes were resting on the 
dreary, lifeless scene which was nothing 
but a still blending of hazy blue now 
that the small white sail no longer gave 
life to it. She did not even turn when 
the sound of wet splashy footsteps upon 
the deck came to her ears. The new- 
comer had kicked off his brogues amid- 
ships, and was coming aft in wet waders 
and soaking outer socks, out of respect 
for the Hermione s deck. 

There was a vague suggestion of re- 
spectful familiarity in his movements. 
One could tell instinctively that he had 
known these ladies for many years. Nor 
did he apologize for the informality of his 
attire. 

This man was clad du reste disgrace- 
fully. His old tweed coat was baggy and 
most lamentably worn. One sleeve was 
very wet, while the other was muddy. 
The gray waders were discoloured, and 
he had apparently been kneeling in green 
slime. 

He came beneath the awning, and 


1 8 Suspense 

raised from his close-cropped head a most 
lamentable hat of gray cloth, with a vague 
brim and no independent shape. All 
round it were salmon-flies and a coil of 
gleaming gut. 

As he stood there beneath the awning 
in the gray twilight with his head bared, 
the strange incongruity of his person was 
very noticeable. A sturdy, lightly-built 
body spoke of great activity. It was 
the frame of a soldier. But the face was 
of a different type. In itself it was in- 
consistent, because the upper part of it 
had no sympathy with the lower. A fore- 
head which receded slightly in a kindly 
curve to strong curled hair could only be 
described as bland, while beneath straight 
thick brows there smiled a pair of gray 
eyes as meek as human eyes were ever 
made. It was in these same meek eyes 
that all the world misread this man. In 
brow and eyes he was a soft-hearted phi- 
lanthropist, such as are easily misled and 
gulled with exaggerated tales of woe. A 
man to take up some impossible scheme 


19 


The Exception 

to alleviate the sorrows of a class or kind, 
to busy himself unprofitably in a crusade 
against class privileges and uphold the 
so-called rights of a victimized working 
population. But from the eyes down- 
wards this was all lost, and there were 
other signs instead. The nose was straight 
and somewhat small, while the lips, 
though clean-shaven, were entirely devoid 
of any suggestion of coarseness, such as 
one may read upon the mouths of most 
men past the age of twenty-five, unless a 
moustache charitably hide such failing. 
The mouth was almost too severe in its 
clean curve ; in repose it was Napoleonic, 
in gaiety it lost all hardness. The chin, 
again, was square and slightly prominent. 
To judge from nose and lips and chin 
this new-comer had been intended for a 
soldier, but the meek eyes disturbed this 
theory. 

That his life had been chiefly spent in 
the open air was discernible from his bear- 
ing and appearance. Judging from out- 
ward things, one could not help feeling 


20 Suspense 

that Theodore Trist was an exceptional 
man in some way or other, in sport or 
work, in deed or thought. His broad 
pensive brow would seem to indicate a 
literary or poetic tendency, while the meek 
eyes spoke of a great love for Nature and 
her unfathomable ways. The man might 
easily have been a naturalist or a vague 
day-dreamer, dabbling in the writer’s art. 
Certain it was that he could only he a 
specialist of some description. No uni- 
versality could exist behind those gentle 
eyes. Certain also, it would seem, that he 
trod in the paths of peace where’er he 
went. His gentle movements, his calm 
soft speech, were almost womanlike. But 
then these indications ran full tilt against 
the soldierly frame and the still hard lips. 
The most discerning physiognomist would 
not have dared to say that those gentle 
eyes had looked upon more bloodshed 
than any warrior of the day; that the 
brown ears had been torn by more human 
shrieks of utter agony than any army- 
surgeon has ever listened to. This man 


21 


The Exception 

of peace was the finest, ablest, truest 
chronicler of a battle that ever scribbled 
notes amidst the battle smoke. Like 
many, he found his metier by accident. 
He was leaving Oxford when the first 
rumour of war between France and Ger- 
many startled the world. 

When at last the quick defiance was 
hurled from one nation to another, Theo- 
dore Trist disappeared. The sound of 
battle drew him away from peaceful Eng- 
land to that fair country by the Rhine 
where blood has been sucked into the 
fertile earth to grow again into deadly 
hatred. The din and roar and fury of 
battle was this mild-eyed man’s element. 
The sulphureous smoke of cannon was the 
breath of life to him. And yet through it 
all there went the strange incongruity of 
his being. In the wild joy of fighting 
(which carries men out from themselves 
and transforms them into new strange 
beings), Trist never lost his gentle demean- 
our. The plucky Frenchmen, with whom 
he spent that terrible winter, laughed at 


22 Suspense 

him, but one and all ended their merriment 
with upraised finger and grave, assuring 
eyes. 

“ Mais,” they said compensatingly, “dun 
courage . . and the sentence finished 
up with a shrug and outspread hands, 
indicating that the courage of “ce drole 
Trist” was practically without bounds. 

And yet he did not actually fight with 
sword and rifle. The pen was his arm 
and weapon. In two languages he wrote 
through all that campaign the record of 
a losing fight. While endeavouring to 
give a somewhat unchivalrous enemy his 
due, he made no denial of partisanship. 
The ease and fluency with which he 
expressed himself in French excluded 
all hope of that, and Trist frankly arrayed 
himself on the side of the losing nation. 
Finally he occupied with perfect se- 
renity the anomalous position of a non- 
combatant who ran a soldier’s risk — a 
neutral totally unprotected, and un- 
recognised as such — an English war- 
correspondent who, of his own free will, 


The Exception 23 

refused to lay himself under the obli- 
gations entailed by protection. 

When at length Paris had fallen, an 
emaciated, pale-faced Englishman turned 
his back upon the demoralized capital 
and sought his native land. His groove 
in life had been found. Theodore Trist 
was a born chronicler of battle-fields. 
His great knowledge of his subject, his 
instinctive divination of men’s motives, 
saved him from the many pitfalls that 
usually lie concealed in the path of 
all who follow an army-corps without 
occupying a post therein. He watched 
war as a lover of war, not as a self- 
constituted representative of a hyper- 
critical nation. 

So Trist returned to England and 
found himself famous. Upon every 
bookstall in the kingdom he found a 
small red volume of his letters collected 
from the columns of the journal he had 
represented during the great unfinished 
war. 

In the course of a few days he called 


24 Suspense 

upon his various friends — Mrs. Wylie 
among the first, Alice and Brenda 
Gilholme, at the house of their aunt, 
Mrs. Gilholme, shortly afterwards. It 
was about this time that Brenda con- 
ceived the idea that Theo Trist loved 
her sister. He was only one among 
many, but he was different from the rest, 
and the young girl, for the first time, 
blamed her sister seriously. She kept 
these things in her heart, however. If 
Trist had fallen a victim to the fascina- 
tions of the light-hearted coquette, he 
certainly concealed his feelings most 
jealously. 

Brenda fully recognised that the fact 
of his being less light-hearted, less 
cheerful than of old, might easily be 
accounted for by the horrors through 
which he had passed during the late 
months; but there was something else. 
There was another change which had 
come over him since his return. 

While she was still watching and 
wondering, Theo Trist suddenly vanished, 


25 


The Exception 

and soon afterwards there broke out a 
small war in the Far East. Like a vulture 
he had scented blood, and was on the 
spot by the time that the news of hostili- 
ties had reached England. He never 
wrote private letters, but his work in the 
new field of battle was closely watched 
by the small circle of friends at home. 
As usual, his letters attracted attention, 
and people talked vaguely of this wonder- 
ful war-correspondent — vaguely because 
he was personally unknown. 

When he returned Alice Gilholme 
was married, and Brenda had to tell 
him of it. No surprise, no signs of dis- 
comfiture were visible in the man’s in- 
congruous face, where strength and 
weakness were strangely mixed. He 
inquired keenly and practically about 
settlements, expressed a hope that Alice 
would be happy, and changed the subject. 

Trist approached Mrs. Wylie with slow 
steps. In his two hands he carried a fine 
stout salmon with a sharp snout. Its 
dark lips curled upwards with an evil 


26 Suspense 

twist, and even in death its eyes were 
full of fight. 

The lady dropped her book upon her 
lap, and looked up with a smile. In 
her eyes there was a kindly and yet 
scrutinizing look which was almost 
motherly in its discernment. This young 
man was evidently more to her than the 
rest of his kind. She knew his impassive 
face so well that she could read where 
others saw an unwritten page. 

“ Ah,” she said, with some interest (for 
she was a sportsman’s wife), “ that is a 
good fish ! ” 

“ Yes,” he acquiesced in a soft and 
rather monotonous voice, harmonizing 
with his eyes. “ He is a fine fellow. 
We had a desperate fight ! ” 

As if to prove the severity of the 
struggle, he looked down at his knees, 
which were muddy, and then held out his 
right hand, which was streaked with blood. 

“ Ah, how nasty ! ” exclaimed Mrs. 
Wylie pleasantly. “ Is it yours or his ? ” 

“ Mine, I think. Yes, it must be mine.” 


27 


The Exception 

Brenda had approached slowly, and was 
standing close to him. She stooped a 
little to examine the fish, which he held 
towards her with his left hand, and even 
deigned to poke it critically on the 
shoulder with her finger. 

“ Are you hurt ? ” she inquired casually, 
without looking up. 

A slow gleam of humour lighted up 
Trist’s soft and melancholy eyes as he 
looked down at her. 

“ He cannot answer for himself,” he said 
suggestively. “ But I think I can volun- 
teer the information that he is not hurt 
now. He died the death of a plucky fish, 
and did not flinch.” 

“ I meant you? 

“ I ? Oh no, I am not hurt, thank you. 
Only very dirty.” 


28 


Suspense 


CHAPTER III 


A SHADOW 


HE two fishermen went off in oppo- 



JL site directions again the next day, 
the Admiral taking the gig and sailing 
down the fjord to the distant river, while 
Trist went ashore in Nielsen’s boat to fish 
the stream that ran past the little mountain 
homestead. 

It was a dull foreboding day; for the 
clouds had fallen over the summits and all 
was gray. The gorges were dark, and over 
everything there seemed to have come 
a sudden gloomy melancholy. Without 
actually raining, the gray mist overhead 
dissolved softly into a falling dampness 
which was more subtly penetrating than 
driving rain itself. The sea was of a dull 
gray, and looked muddy. The Arctic 
fjords can make a wondrous show when 
the sun shines, and fleecy white clouds 


A Shadow 


29 

nestle upon the shoulders of the grim 
mountains, but when a gray pall hangs 
motionless one thousand feet above the 
sea, there is no more dismal prospect 
on earth. It seems as if the rain would 
softly fall for ever and a day — as if 
nothing could ever brush aside the heavy 
vaporous veil, and let the gay blue sky 
peep through again. 

But it was a grand fishing-day, despite 
a chill breeze too weak to move the clouds, 
and the fishermen went off in high spirits. 
The ladies stood on deck and waved 
departing wishes for good luck. Before 
the breeze Admiral Wylie scudded away, 
while Trist’s progress in the heavier boat 
was slower, owing to the northern deliber- 
ation of Nielsen’s movements. They saw 
him land, and immediately he was sur- 
rounded by a skipping, dancing bevy of 
little white-haired children — merry little 
boys who begged him in their monotonous 
Norse to throw a stone far, far across the 
sea. Willingly he obliged them, while 
eager hands were outstretched to hold his 


30 Suspense 

rod and gaff. Then the little maidens 
had to be attended to, notably one quaint 
little figure in a dress made upon the 
same lines as her mother’s, reaching to her 
heels, with true golden hair, plaited and 
pressed close against her tiny head in 
gleaming coils, who looked up into his 
face with a wondrous pair of blue eyes, 
which seemed to speak some deep un- 
earthly language of their own. 

This little one went up the path 
towards the river in triumph, standing 
upon the lid of his creel with her little 
fingers closely clutching the collar of his 
coat, while the boys and older girls ran 
by his side chattering gaily. 

“ And that,” said Mrs. Wylie in her 
semi-sarcastic way as she turned to go 
below with the view of consulting the 
steward about dinner, “ is the man whose 
element is war.” 

She waited a moment, but Brenda 
made no reply beyond a short, mirthless 
laugh. 

During that day the clouds never 


A Shadow 


3 1 

lifted. It was twilight from morning 
till night. At times it drizzled in a silent 
feathery way, and occasionally it rained 
harder. The temperature grew hot and 
cold, unaccountably, at intervals, and the 
roar of the river was singularly noticeable. 

At six o’clock in the evening Nielsen’s 
boat dropped alongside, and Trist clam- 
bered on board the Hermione. The 
ladies, having heard the sound of oars, 
came on deck to meet him. 

“ Ah,” said Brenda ; “ you are the first 
home again.” 

“ Yes. I have three, so I am content,” 
was his reply. “ Is there no sign of the 
Admiral ? ” 

“ Not yet.” 

As they spoke they moved aft and 
stood beneath the awning, looking down 
the deserted fjord. There was no sail, 
no suggestion of life to break the 
monotony of its waters. Presently Trist 
took a pair of binoculars from a small 
covered box screwed to the after-rail, and 
gazed steadily at a certain point on the 


32 Suspense 

southern shore where there was a gap in 
the bleak wall of mountain. 

“ The boat,” he said, “seems to be lying 
there still ; I can just see something 
yellow near the large rock overhanging 
the river.” 

Mrs. Wylie looked at her watch. In 
half an hour dinner would be ready, and 
the boat was five miles away. Even 
with a stiff breeze the Admiral, whose 
punctuality was proverbial, could not 
hope to be in time. She turned, and, 
looking forward, perceived the steward 
standing at the open galley door, tele- 
scope in hand, wearing upon his keen 
North-country face a look of holy resig- 
nation. 

“ That old gentleman,” said Mrs. Wylie 
in an undertone, as she looked towards 
the distant boat, “ is going to get himself 
into trouble. The steward is annoyed.” 

Presently Trist went below to change 
his clothes, and when he returned, twenty 
minutes later, the ladies were still on 
deck, standing near the after-rail, looking 


A Shadow 


33 


down the fjord towards the river. It 
was nothing alarming for a salmon-fisher- 
man to be an hour late for dinner, and 
there was no display of anxiety on the 
part of Mrs. Wylie. She was not a 
worrying woman, and she was, moreover, 
*a sailor’s wife, endowed with a brave, 
cheery heart, and well accustomed to 
wait for wind, weather, or mishap. She 
appeared to be more afraid of the stew- 
ard’s displeasure than of anything else, 
laughing at it with mock foreboding, after 
the manner of ladies who feel that they 
are beloved by their inferiors. 

About half-past seven a fresh breeze 
sprang up, blowing across the fjord fit- 
fully, and consequently favourable to 
sailing either way. Brenda had been 
watching Mrs. Wylie and Theo furtively, 
for she was of a somewhat anxious 
temperament, and could not understand 
the levity with which they were pleased 
to treat Admiral Wylie’s prolonged ab- 
sence. 

She now noticed a subtle change in 
3 


34 


Suspense 

Trist’s manner. His meek eyes acquired 
a strange quickness of movement, and 
for the first time she saw him glance 
sideways, or, to be more explicit, she 
perceived that he turned his eyes in a 
certain direction without turning also his 
head. This direction was invariably 
down the fjord towards the river. There 
was no actual change in his manner ; 
but there seemed to be a new influence 
in his presence. It was one of command. 
The girl suddenly and unaccountably felt 
that this soft-spoken man was no longer 
a mere guest on board the Hermione . In 
the absence of Admiral Wylie the actual 
command of the ship fell upon his 
shoulders, and in his gentle, passive way 
he had assumed the responsibility, almost 
unconsciously, without ostentation. 

Brenda was in no manner surprised 
when he presently turned to Mrs. Wylie 
and said : 

“ It is no use waiting any longer. I 
think you and Brenda had better go 
down to dinner, while I take the long- 


A Shadow 35 

boat and sail down to see what is delaying 
them.” 

The hostess made no attempt to combat 
his decision, but amended it hospitably. 

“ You must have some dinner first,” 
she said decisively. There was no inter- 
change of anxious doubts, no alleviating 
suggestions of obvious worthlessness, such 
as timid people proffer readily to per- 
sons suffering from suspense ; and Brenda 
felt that there was a great courage be- 
hind the smiling woman’s face at her 
side. 

Trist went forward to where Captain 
Barrow was standing, smoking his even- 
ing pipe just abaft the mainmast. 

“ Will you get out the long-boat, 
please,” the ladies heard him say, “ with 
mast, and sail, and one man ? ” 

Presently he joined them in the saloon, 
where they were pretending to dine, and 
hurriedly drank some soup. No one 
spoke, and the sound of the sailors’ move- 
ments as they lowered the long-boat was 
the only break in an uncomfortable 


36 Suspense 

silence. The steward moved noiselessly 
and lithely, as behoved his calling. 

“Your oilskins are in your state-room, 
sir,” he whispered presently to Trist, who 
soon afterwards passed through the nar- 
row doorway into his little apartment. 

When he came out he was fully clad 
against the fine cold rain which was fall- 
ing now. Even in heavy sea-boots he 
managed to walk smoothly. 

The lamp had been lighted in the 
saloon, and he stood for a moment within 
its rays, looking at the two ladies. It 
was an incongruous and unconsciously 
dramatic picture thus formed in the 
refined little saloon, the two gracious 
women smiling wistfully at the straight, 
slim man in gleaming waterproofs. The 
very contrast between their delicate even- 
ing-dresses and his seaman-like attire was 
a shock. The white table-cloth, adorned 
with polished silver and odorous flowers, 
seemed a mockery, because there were 
two empty chairs beside it. 

He leant over the back of his chair, 


A Shadow 


37 

and, reaching his wine-glass, which stood 
half full, he emptied it. 

“ Do not be anxious,” he said ; “ I 
expect we shall be back before you have 
finished dinner.” 

And he passed out of the saloon, 
swinging his sou’-wester by its strings. 

“We will keep some dinner warm for 
you both,” called out Mrs. Wylie cheer- 
fully, and from a distance he answered : 

“ Thank you ! ” 

While continuing their homeopathic 
meal they heard the sound of men’s 
voices, the creak of a block, and imme- 
diately afterwards the rush of the long- 
boat through the water under heavy 
sail. 

It was very cold that evening, and, 
owing to the heavy clouds, almost dark. 
Nevertheless the ladies went on deck 
immediately after the farce of dinner had 
been carried to an end. At first they 
talked in a scrappy, strained way, and 
then lapsed into silence. Wrapped closely 
in their cloaks, they walked side-by-side 


38 Suspense 

fore and aft. Owing to the fine drizzle 
which blew across the fjord, it was now 
impossible to distinguish any object more 
than a mile away from the yacht, and the 
two women were enveloped in a silent 
gray veil of suspense. 

Until ten o’clock they continued their 
vigil — alone on the deck except for the 
watchful steward standing within the 
galley-door. Then Brenda espied a sail 
looming through the gray mist. 

“ There is one of the boats,” she said 
gently, but there was a faint thrill of 
dread in her voice. 

Mrs. Wylie made no answer, but 
walked to the after-rail, out from be- 
neath the awning, into the rain. Brenda 
followed, and there they stood waiting. 

“ It is the gig,” said the elder woman 
half to herself, otherwise the horrible 
moments passed mutely by. 

There was but one man in the boat. 
Trist had undoubtedly sent for help. 
Contrary to etiquette, the sailor did not 
make for the steps hanging amidships, 


A Shadow 


39 


but came straight beneath the counter of 
the Hermione , lowering his sail deftly, and 
standing up to touch his dripping sou’- 
wester as the boat fell alongside. 

The sailor was young and impulsive. 
He did not think much of yachtsman 
etiquette just then, but stood up in his 
boat, holding on to the rail of the vessel 
with both hands. 

“ Please, marm,” he said hurriedly and 
unevenly, “ I waited at the mouth of the 
river as the Admiral told me to do until 
seven o’clock, and he never came. Then 
I landed, and clambered up a bit to look 
for him. When a’ was a bit up I saw 
the long-boat cornin’ and Mr. Trist steer- 
ing her, so I went down again. Mr. 
Trist ’s gone up the river, marm, and me 
and Barker waited for two hours and 
heard nothin.’ Then Barker says I ’d 
better come on board an’ tell yer, marm.” 

“ You did quite right, Cobbold,” re- 
plied Mrs. Wylie, in a monotonous voice. 
“ You had better come on board and get 
something to eat; you look tired.” 


40 Suspense 

But the man did not move. He shook 
his head. 

“ No, marm,” he said bashfully, “ I ’m 
not wantin’ anything t’eat. And I ’m not 
tired . . . only I ’m a bit . . . scared ! 
I should like to go back, marm, at once 
to the river.” 

Mrs. Wylie thought for a moment 
deeply. 

“ I will go back with you,” she said at 
length. Then she went forward to 
where Captain Barrow stood with the 
rest of the crew, now thoroughly aroused 
to anxiety, grouped behind him. 

“ Captain Barrow,” she said, in a tone 
slightly raised, so that all might hear 
her, “ the Admiral has not come back 
yet. I am afraid that he. has either hurt 
himself or is lost in the mist. I will go 
back with Cobbold in the gig. But 
. . . it will not be necessary to keep the 
men up.” 

In the meantime, Brenda had not been 
idle. She ran down below and found 
the steward already in the saloon pro- 


A Shadow 


4i 


curing waterproofs. He was kneeling 
before an open locker when she entered 
the little cabin, and, turning his head, he 
saw her. 

“ Are you going too, Miss ? ” he asked. 

“Yes, Clarke, I am going/’ 

“ Then will you put this flask of brandy 
into your pocket, miss ? I don’t like to 
give it to the missus. It’s kinder sug- 
gestive like.” 

She took the little bottle, and while 
he helped her on with her waterproof 
cloak he spoke again in his kindly 
Northumbrian familiarity: 

“ It ’s a good thing we ’ve got Mr. Trist 
with us this night, that it is ! He ’s what 
Captain Barrow would call a strong tower.” 

Brenda smiled rather wanly as she 
hurried away. 

“ Yes,” she answered ; “ I am very glad 
we have him to rely upon.” 

Mrs. Wylie seemed scarcely to notice 
that Brenda stepped into the boat and sat 
down beside her. The little lady was 
making a brave fight against her growing 


42 


Suspense 

anxiety. She even laughed when the 
sail filled with a loud flap, and nearly 
precipitated Cobbold into the water. 
Crouching low, the two women sat in 
silence. It was now blowing stiffly, and 
perhaps Cobbold would have done better 
to take a reef in the light sail ; but in his 
anxiety to reach the river without delay 
he risked the lives of his two passengers 
more freely than he would have dared to 
do in a cooler moment. As is usually 
the case, his confidence was greater under 
excitement, and no mishap befell the 
little boat. 


A Sportsman’s Death 


43 


CHAPTER IV 

a sportsman’s death 

W HEN they reached the mouth of 
the river they found the long- 
boat lying alongside the huge shelving 
rock used as a landing-stage on account 
of its convenience during all varieties 
of tide. 

The man watching there had heard 
or seen nothing of Mr. Trist or Admiral 
Wylie. The ladies sat for some time in 
the stern of the gig, wrapped in their 
waterproof cloaks, without speaking. 
Then Brenda begged to be landed. She 
was shivering with cold and anxiety. 
She walked slowly up the smooth sur- 
face of the rock and disappeared. Once 
out of sight of the two boats which lay 
heaving softly on the bosom of the rising 
tide, she quickened her pace, keeping to 
the narrow path trodden on the peaty 


44 Suspense 

soil by Admiral Wylie and Theo Trist 
in turn. It was probable that the 
human beings who had passed along 
that scarcely visible track, from the 
days of the Flood down to the time that 
this English girl pressed her way through 
the silver birch-trees, could be counted 
upon the fingers of two hands. There 
was nothing to attract the curious up 
the deep gorge formed by this unknown 
stream. Far inland, over impassable 
rocks, lay the corner of a huge glacier 
from whence the river received its chill 
waters. There was no natural beauty to 
draw thither the artist, no animal life 
to attract the naturalist, no vast height 
to tempt the mountaineer. Here century 
after century the trout had lain, head up 
stream, to catch what God might send 
them. In the lower waters, year after 
year, the sturdy salmon had pressed past 
each other through rill and whirlpool, 
with gills flattened to the fresh, cool 
waters of the snow-field. 

In all human probability no woman’s 


A Sportsman’s Death 45 

footprint had impressed itself upon that 
turf before. 

The valley took a turn westward round 
a great sloping forest of pine and silver- 
birch, harmoniously mingled, about half a 
mile from the sea, and soon afterwards the 
hills closed menacingly over the noisy 
river. The water here was very rough and 
broken. At times a great smooth pool, 
half an acre in extent, twenty feet in depth, 
would lie at the foot of a series of roaring 
waterfalls of no great height, but infinite 
variety. Again, there were long broken 
rapids, which only a salmon could expect 
to stem, and here and there smooth runs 
almost navigable for a boat. 

Regardless of peaty pool and treacher- 
ous rivulets running over brilliant turf, 
Brenda hurried on. The mere bodily 
fatigue was a comfort to her, the very act 
of breaking the small branches in her way 
a solace. It was now nearly midnight, 
and already on the snow-field above her 
the pearly pink light of morning crept on 
its glistening way. The twilight was no 


46 Suspense 

longer lowering, but full of fresh promise. 
A new day softly smiled upon the silent 
land which had known no night ; but to 
the solitary girl it brought little hope. 

Suddenly she stopped and listened 
intently. A distant crackle of dry wood 
beneath a human tread repeated itself. 
Someone was approaching rapidly. 

A moment later Theo Trist stood 
before her, but she scarcely recognized 
him. Her first feeling was one of utter 
surprise that his meek eyes could look so 
resolute. The man’s face was changed, 
and he who stood before Brenda was not 
the well-bred, quiet gentleman, but the 
lost soldier. She did not realize then 
that he had been fifteen hours on his feet 
with hardly any food. She scarcely 
noticed that his clothes were wet, and 
clinging to his limbs, and that he was 
without his waterproof. All she saw, all 
she had eyes for, was that strange incon- 
grous face where resolution dominated so 
suddenly. 

He it was who broke the silence, and 


A Sportsman’s Death 47 

he was forced to shout, because they were 
so close to the river. 

“ Where is Mrs. Wylie ? ” he asked. 

“ She is at the mouth of the river,” 
replied Brenda — “ in the boat, waiting.” 

“ Come away ! ” he shouted, beckoning 
with his head, and they moved through 
the pine-wood further inland, where the 
brawl of the stream was less disagreeable. 

Then he took her hand in his, and 
looked down into her face with uncon- 
scious scrutiny. 

“ You must go back to her, Brenda,” he 
said, “and tell her that Admiral Wylie is 
dead. I found him in a whirlpool about 
half a mile above here.” 

“ When was that ? ” asked the girl 
mechanically. 

“ Oh, an hour ago. I have been all 
this time in the water recovering . . . 
getting him ashore.” 

“ Was he quite dead ? ” 

“ Quite dead. It must have happened 
early in the day, for his lunch was still in 
his creel.” 


4 8 


Suspense 

“ Where is he . . . now ? ” whispered 
Brenda, looking through the trees from 
which Trist had emerged. 

“ Through there, on the bank. I began 
carrying him down to the boat, but had 
to give it up.” 

She said nothing, but moved a step or 
two towards the spot indicated. Then he 
took her hand within his and led the way. 
Presently they came out of the thicker 
wood on to the rocky ground near the 
river, and soon afterwards came into sight 
of a still form lying on the turf beneath 
Trist’s waterproof. There were stones on 
the corners of the mackintosh to prevent 
it being blown away, but the wind pene- 
trated between them and the stuff rippled 
with a slight sound. The upper part of 
the body only was covered, and there was, 
in the wet waders and misshapen brogues, 
a suggestion of simple pride. In bad 
weather the Admiral had always fished in 
an old black sou’-wester, and this lay by 
his side with his creel and rod. The 
old sportsman had died in harness, with 


A Sportsman's Death 49 

the quick burr-r-r of the reel sounding in 
his ears and a “ taut line ” bending his 
rod ; for Trist found the gut broken. 

The man who had looked on death 
so often, who had slept amidst the groans 
of the dying and the heartrending cries of 
the sore-wounded, now knelt and simply 
drew back the covering from the still 
gray face. Death was so familiar to him 
that the sight of it brought no shock, 
and he scarcely realized what he was 
doing. Mechanically Brenda knelt down 
on the turf, her dress touching the dead 
man’s hand. For some moments she re- 
mained thus, while the rosy light of dawn 
crept down the mountain side. Behind 
her stood Trist, silently watching. Pres- 
ently he looked round and noted the in- 
crease of daylight; then he touched her 
shoulder. 

“Come, Brenda,” he said. “The day 
is breaking. We must go. I will walk 
back with you to the boat.” 

She rose and shook her head decisively. 

“No,” she answered. “You must stay 
4 


5 ° 


Suspense 

here — beside him. I will go back alone. 
It is better for me to tell Mrs. Wylie.” 

“ You are not afraid ? ” he inquired. 

“ No. I am not afraid.” 

She spoke in her simple, quiet way, 
which was not without a certain force, 
despite her gentle voice. It was no boast 
of courage that she was making, but a 
plain statement of fact. 

Before the sun’s rays had crept down 
the bare mountain side to the sea, the 
two boats moved away from the rock 
that seemed to guard the mouth of the 
river. 

In the gig — the first boat to get away 
— were seated Mrs. Wylie and Brenda, 
while the sailor Cobbold steered. Trist 
followed in the long-boat, steering him- 
self, while the sailor crouched down for- 
ward. Between the two men lay, beneath 
the thwarts, the genial, kind-hearted old 
sportsman, who would never hear the glad 
rattle of the reel again, who would no 
more watch, with keen dancing eyes, the 
straining line. Never again would he 


A Sportsman’s Death 

recount his day’s adventures in the cosy 
cabin, giving the salmon his full due, 
throwing in here and there a merry little 
detail to his own discomfiture. Now he 
lay, with his waders slowiy drying, his 
eyes peacefully closed, his brown, weather- 
beaten hands limply clenched. Trist had 
reeled in the severed line, divided the 
useless rod, and laid aside the empty creel, 
all in his silent, emotionless way, with no 
look of horror in his soft eyes. 


52 


Suspense 


CHAPTER V 

BAD NEWS 

T HE Hermione came home with her 
bad news to meet gloomy tidings. 
The Eastern Question had suddenly taken 
a turn that meant war. Trist found tele- 
grams awaiting him at Bergen which 
called him to England by the quickest 
route. He left the same evening, reluc- 
tant and yet eager to go. 

If Trist had hoped to pass through 
London without meeting anyone except 
the editor of the mighty journal from 
whose coffer he was soon to draw the 
income of a Continental prince, he was 
disappointed. It would seem, however, 
that he was upon this point, as on many, 
broadly indifferent. He went to a club, 
where he was almost certain of meeting 
some of his friends — a club of which the 
members never leave town because the 


Bad News 


53 

calendar bids them do so ; never quite 
lay aside their labour ; and appear to 
sleep when others are awake, working 
while others sleep. 

He went there because it was conven- 
iently near at hand, and he was sure of 
having rapid attention given to his desires. 
As he entered the dining-room a young 
man rose from one of the small square 
tables with dramatic surprise. 

“ Theodore Trist, by all that ’s sacred ! ” 
exclaimed this youth. He was of medium 
height with a fair moustache. This manly 
adornment was the prominent thing about 
him. But for it, his face was that of 
a fair and somewhat weak-minded girl. 
There was always an abundance of cuff 
and deep turn-down collar, of which the 
points overlapped the flap of a wide-cut 
waistcoat. In the matter of neck-tie, a 
soft silken material of faded hue rivalled 
the golden moustache in obtruding itself 
before the public gaze. Dark-blue eyes 
devoid of depth, and a slightly aquiline 
nose, complete the picture. This man 


54 Suspense 

was no ordinary being. Had he been 
dressed like an ordinary being — like, let 
us say, a tea-broker — men and women 
would still have looked at him twice. 
Kensington lion-hunters would still have 
kept him in touch, so to speak, on the 
chance of his developing from puppyhood 
into cubhood, and so on to the maturity 
of a London lion. His name was William 
Hicks. In order to battle successfully 
against such a heavy handicap, the young 
man was forced, like a good general, to 
spare no expense in his outfit. This 
most commonplace association of two 
good English names cost their possessor 
as much per annum as would enable 
a thrifty maiden lady (or four German 
clerks) to live comfortably. 

He would have # given much to be 
labelled by such a nomenclature as 
“ Theodore Trist ” — a poetic assimilation 
of letters quite unnecessary for the war- 
correspondent, and even wasted upon 
him. His work would have been 
equally popular if signed William Hicks, 


Bad News 


55 

whereas the artist, who was some day 
going to surprise the old world and 
make the spirits of its ancient masters 
shake in their ethereal shoes, was 
dragged down and held back by the 
drysalting name of Hicks. For certain 
reasons, to which even the unmercenary 
soul of William was forced to bow, 
there was no hope of ever changing it 
for something more poetic. Certain it 
was (and perhaps the artist knew it) 
that there were many houses to which 
Theodore Trist had an ever-welcome 
entry, while he — William Hicks — was 
excluded. It could only be the name 
that drew this line, and, indeed, it was 
in many cases nothing else. 

Without any great show of cordiality, 
Trist shook the long, nerveless hand 
extended to him. He even went so far 
as to nod familiarly over Hicks’ shoulder 
to a servant who, having drawn back a 
chair, fulfilled his immediate duty by 
waiting. 

“ Where have you come from, old 


56 Suspense 

man?” asked the artist. “ You look as if 
you had been sleeping in your shirt for a 
week.” 

Like many of his tribe, Hicks had a 
great notion of being all things to all 
men. He prided himself exceedingly 
upon his powers of adaptability to 
environment. With men he was, there- 
fore, slangy ; with women tender and 
poetic. With the former he could not 
be manly, and for this quality he sub- 
stituted an inordinate use of language 
more descriptive than that usually em- 
ployed by gentlemen in the presence of 
ladies. Not possessing the slightest vein 
of humour, he assumed with women the 
poetic mantle, and surrounded himself 
for the time being with a halo of 
melancholy. There are people who, 
while endeavouring to be all things, are 
nothing — while seeking to render them- 
selves valuable to the many, are of use to 
none. 

“ I have not been sleeping much in 
anything,” replied Trist, “ and just at the 


Bad News 


57 

moment a wash is what I require. After 
that some dinner.” 

This served as an answer to Hicks, and 
an order to the waiter at the same time ; 
and with a nod Trist passed on to the 
dressing-rooms. 

“ Where will Mr. Trist dine ? ” asked 
Hicks, turning to the waiter, and speak- 
ing somewhat sharply, as people do who 
fear the ridicule of their inferiors. 

“At my table, sir!” with a certain air 
of possession. 

“ Then just move my plate . . . and 
things ... to the same, will you ? ” 

When the war-correspondent returned 
to the dining-room, he found Hicks 
established at the table where he in- 
variably sat, and the waiter holding a 
chair in readiness for him with a face of 
the most complete stolidity. Without 
betraying either pleasure or annoyance, 
he took the proffered chair and attacked 
his soup in a business-like way, which 
did not promise conversational leisure. 

“ In a deuce of a hurry,” suggested the 
artist. 


58 


Suspense 

“ Yes. Have to catch a train.” 

“ Going off to the East, I suppose ? " 
asked Hicks carelessly. 

With his shallow blue eyes persistently 
fixed on Trist’s face, he stroked his 
moustache daintily. 

“ Yes.” 

“ To-night ? ” 

“At eight-twenty,” replied Trist, meet- 
ing his gaze with gentle impatience. 

“ Ah ! Lady Pearer was asking me 
the other day if you were there, or on 
the way to the seat of war.” 

“ Lady Pearer ? Don’t know her,” 
observed Trist, with his mouth full of 
bread. 

“ She seemed to know you.” 

The suggestion of a smile flickered 
across Trist’s face, but his entire atten- 
tion was absorbed just then by a bony 
piece of turbot. He made no answer, 
and silently shelved the subject in a 
manner which was not strictly com 
plimentary to Mr. Hicks’ fair and aristo- 
cratic friend. 




Bad News 


59 


The artist was one of those exceed- 
ingly pleasant persons who can never 
quite realize that their presence and con- 
versation might, without serious incon- 
venience, be dispensed with. The mere 
fact of being seen in friendly intercourse 
with a person of his social distinction 
was, in his own simple heart, worthy of 
the consideration of greater men than 
Theodore Trist. In recounting the fact 
later, of his having dined with the cele- 
brated war-correspondent on the eve of 
his departure for Bulgaria, he took ex- 
ceeding great care to omit the mention 
of certain details. Moreover, he allowed 
it to be understood that the farewell 
feast was organized by Trist, and that 
there was some subtle political meaning 
in the hurried interview thus obtained. 

“Trist,” he said, with a suggestion of 
melancholy, to Lady Pearer and other of 
his friends, “ is a strange fellow. He has 
a peculiar repelling manner, which causes 
people to imagine that he is indiffer- 
ent to them. Now, when I dined with 


60 Suspense 

him at the ‘ Press * the other night,” 
etc., etc. 

Trist continued his dinner with that 
tranquillity of demeanour which marked 
his movements upon all occasions, but 
more especially, perhaps, when he was 
displeased or very much on the alert. 
The silence which followed the collapse 
of the Lady Pearer incident did not appear 
in the least irksome to him, whatever it 
may have been to his companion. 

Hicks toyed with the rind of his cheese, 
and wondered whether the novel bow of 
his voluminous dress-tie was straight. 

“ By the way,” he said at length, “ have 
you not been in Norway with the 
Wylies ? ” 

The young artist had at one time been 
a protege of Mrs. Wylie’s, but her pro- 
tection had been gradually withdrawn. 

“ The fair Brenda was with them, n’est- 
ce pas ? ” 

Trist broke his bread with grave 
deliberation and looked stolid. After a 
momentary pause he raised his eyes to 
his companion’s face. 


Bad News 


61 

“ Eh ? ” he murmured softly. 

“ Miss Gilholme,” explained the other, 
with an involuntary change of manner. 

“ Yes, she was there.” 

“ I thought,” reflected Hicks aloud, as 
he stroke his moustache contentedly, 
“ that I remembered her telling me that 
she was going to Norway. How is she ? ” 

“Very well, thank you.” 

“ Is she any stouter ? ” with affectionate 
interest. 

“ I don’t know,” replied Trist suavely. 

“ Because,” continued the other in his 
best “ private-view-of-the-Academy ” style, 
“ that is the only fault I have to find 
with her. Her figure is perfect, except 
that she is a trifle too slight — if you 
understand.” 

“ Indeed,” very gently. 

“ From an artistic point of view, of 
course,” explained Hicks with a graceful 
wave of his hand, full of modest depre- 
cation. For some unknown reason a r 
sudden sense of discomfort had come over 
him. 


62 Suspense 

“ Ah, I am not an artist . . . thank 
goodness ! ” 

Hicks glanced uneasily across the table 
at his companion. He now began to per- 
ceive that he had taken the wrong road 
towards gaining the esteem (or perhaps 
the toleration) of this plain-spoken student 
of war. 

Trist was not to be impressed by the 
social position of this dilettante dabbler 
in the fine arts. Soul, pure unvarnished 
soul, had no effect upon his mental 
epidermis. Then a brilliant inspiration 
came to this ambitious youth who 
attempted to be all things to all men. 
For once he would be natural. On this 
one occasion sincerity should grace his 
actions and his wondrous thoughts. 

“ I say, Trist,” he remarked almost 
earnestly, “ I met Martin of the Royal 
Engineers the other day, and he told me 
that it is common mess-room gossip in 
Ceylon that Alice Huston is having a 
miserable life of it out there.” 

Trist had almost finished his dinner. 


Bad News 


6 3 

He looked up gravely, and there was in 
his eyes a worried expression, which, 
however, the artist (who, like most self- 
satisfied people, was not observant) failed 
to see. 

“ I am sorry to hear that,” quietly, 
almost indifferently. 

“ Yes,” continued the other in the per- 
functorily sympathetic tone which we all 
assume while revelling in the recital of 
evil tidings. “ They say that Huston 
drinks, that he is madly jealous and 
coldly indifferent by turns. He always 
was a brute. I remember when he was 
young he was a gourmand, and professed 
to be a great judge of claret. Now a boy 
who thinks of his interior when he ought 
be to hardening his muscles will, in all 
human probability, turn out a drinker.” 

While Hicks was giving the benefit 
of his opinion, Trist had risen from the 
table, and now stood with his two hands 
upon the back of his chair looking down 
thoughtfully at his companion. The 
artist was peeling an early pear with great 


64 Suspense 

delicacy of fingering. Before the war- 
correspondent had time to say anything, 
he continued : 

“ I suppose,” he said somewhat patheti- 
cally, “that you and I are more interested 
in the Gilholmes than most people. To 
a certain extent they rely upon us as old 
friends. That is why I tell you this. I 
never repeat gossip, you know.” 

The last addition was made in a dep- 
recating way, as if to apologize for a 
celebrity which placed certain personal 
peculiarities within public reach. Trist 
had not heard that reticence was one of 
his companion’s characteristics, and he 
treated the remark with silent contempt. 
He did not even smile in response to the 
sympathetic glance of the soulless blue 
eyes. 

“ If,” he observed, “ they rely upon us, 
they will expect us to hold our tongues. 
The truest friendship is shown in talking 
of anything but one’s friends. I must go 
now. Good-night ! ” 


Sisters 


6 5 


CHAPTER VI 

SISTERS 

M ORE than one idler in Plymouth 
Station, one morning in October, 
turned his head to look again at two 
women walking side by side on the plat- 
form near to the London train. One, the 
taller of the two, was exceptionally beauti- 
ful, of a fair delicate type, with an almost 
perfect figure and a face fit for a model 
of the Madonna, so pure in outline was it, 
so innocent in its meaning. The younger 
woman was slightly shorter. She was 
clad in mourning, which contrasted some- 
what crudely with the brighter costume 
of her companion. It was evident that 
these two were sisters ; they walked in 
the same easy way, and especially notable 
was a certain intrepid carriage of the 
head. 

By the side of her sister, Brenda Gil- 

s 


66 Suspense 

holme might easily pass unnoticed. Mrs. 
Huston was, in the usual sense of the 
word, a beautiful woman, and such wo- 
men live in an atmosphere of notoriety. 
Wherever they go they are worshipped 
at a distance by those beneath them in 
station, patronized by those above them, 
respected by their equals, because, for- 
sooth, face and form are moulded with 
delicacy and precision. The mind of 
such a woman is of little importance ; 
the person is pleasing, and more is not 
demanded. 

Brenda was not beautiful ; she was only 
pretty, with a refinement of heart which 
was visible in her delicate face. But her 
prettiness was in no way tainted with 
weakness, as was her sister’s beauty. She 
was strong and thoughtful, with a woman’s 
faculty for hiding these unwelcome quali- 
ties from the eyes of inferior men. She 
had grown up in the shadow of this beau- 
tiful sister, and men had not cared to seek 
for intellect where they saw only a re- 
flected beauty. She had passed through 


Sisters 


6 7 

a social notoriety, but eager eyes had only 
glanced at her in passing. She had 
merely been Alice Gilholme’s sister, and 
now — here on Plymouth platform — Alice 
Huston was assuming her old superiority. 

The sisters had met on the steamboat 
landing a few moments previously. A 
rattling drive through the town had fol- 
lowed, and now they were able to speak 
together alone for the first time. 

“ My dear,” Mrs. Huston was saying, 
“ he will be home by the next boat if he 
can raise the money. We cannot count 
on more than a week’s start.” 

“ And,” inquired Brenda, “ can he raise 
the money ? ” 

“Oh yes! If he can get as far as the 
steamboat office without spending it.” 

Brenda looked at her sister in a curious 
way. 

“Spending it on what?” 

“ On — drink ! ” 

Mrs. Huston was not the woman to 
conceal any of her own grievances from 
quixotically unselfish motives. 


68 Suspense 

Brenda thought for some moments 
before replying. 

“ Then,” she said at length, with some 
determination, “ we must make sure of 
our start, if, that is, you are still deter- 
mined to leave him.” 

Mrs. Huston was looking down at her 
sister’s neat black dress, about which there 
was a subtle air of refined luxury, which 
seems natural to some women, and part of 
their being. 

“Yes, yes, I suppose we must. By the 
way, dear, you are in mourning . . . for 
whom ? ” 

“ For Admiral Wylie,” replied Brenda 
patiently. 

“But it is two months — is it not? — 
since his death, and he was no relation. 
I think it is unnecessary. Black is so 
melancholy, though it suits your figure.” 

“ I am living with Mrs. Wylie,” Brenda 
explained with unconscious irony. “ Are 
you still determined that you cannot live 
with your husband, Alice ? ” 

“ My dear, he is a brute ! I am not an 


Sisters 


69 

impulsive person, but I think that if he 
should catch me again, it is very probable 
that I should do something desperate — 
kill myself, or something of that sort.” 

“ I do not think,” observed Brenda 
serenely, “ that you would ever kill your- 
self.” 

The beautiful woman laughed in an 
easy way, which was one of her many 
social gifts. It was such a pleasantly in- 
fectious laugh, so utterly light-hearted, 
and so ready in its vocation of filling up 
awkward pauses. 

“ No, perhaps not. But in the mean- 
time, what is to become of me? Will 
Mrs. Wylie take me in for a day or two, 
or shall we seek lodgings ? I have some 
money, enough to last a month or so ; 
but I must have two new dresses.” 

“ Mrs. Wylie has kindly said that you 
can stay as long as you like. But, Alice, 
it would never do to stay in London. 
You must get away to some small place 
on the sea-coast, or somewhere where 
you will not be utterly bored, and keep 


7 ° 


Suspense 

in hiding until he comes home, and I 
can find out what he intends to do.” 

“ My dear, I shall be utterly bored 
anywhere except in London. But 
Brenda, tell me . . . you have got into 
a habit of talking exactly like Theo 
Trist!” 

Brenda met her sister’s eyes with a 
smile. 

“ How funny ! ” she exclaimed. “ 1 
have not noticed it.” 

“ No, of course ; you — would not 
notice it. When will he be home ? ” 

The girl stopped and looked critically 
at an advertisement suspended on the wall 
near at hand. It was a huge representa- 
tion of a coloured gentleman upon his 
native shore, making merry over a com- 
plicated pair of braces. 

“ I don’t know,” she replied in- 
differently. 

“We,” continued Mrs. Huston, follow- 
ing out her own train of thought, “ are 
so helpless. We want a man to stand 
by us. Of course papa is of no use. I 


Sisters 


7 1 

suppose he is spouting somewhere about 
the country. He generally is.” 

“ No,” replied Brenda, with a wonder- 
ful tolerance. “We cannot count on 
him. He is in Ireland. I had a post- 
card from him the other day. He said 
that I was not to be surprised or shocked 
to hear that he was in prison. He is 
trying to get himself arrested. It is, he 
says, all part of the campaign.” 

Again Mrs. Huston’s pretty laughter 
made things pleasant and sociable. 

“ I wonder what that means,” she 
exclaimed, smoothing a wrinkle out of 
the front of her jacket for the benefit of 
a military-looking man, with a cigar in 
his mouth, who stared offensively as he 
passed. 

Brenda shrugged her shoulders slightly, 
and said nothing. She did not appear to 
attach a very great importance to her 
father’s political movements, in which 
culpable neglect she was abetted by the 
whole of England. 

“ What we require,” continued Mrs. 


72 Suspense 

Huston, “is an energetic man with 
brains.” 

“ I am afraid that energetic men with 
brains have in most cases their own 
affairs to look after. It is only the 
idle ones with tongues who have time 
to devote to other people’s business.” 

“ The ‘ brute,’ my dear, is clever ; we 
must remember that. And he is terribly 
obstinate. There is a sort of stubborn 
bloodhoundism about him which makes 
me shiver when I think that he is even 
now after me, in all probability.” 

“We must be cool and cunning, and 
brave to fight against him,” said Brenda 
practically. 

At this moment the guard came for- 
ward, and held the door of their com- 
partment invitingly open. They got in, 
and found themselves alone. They were 
barely seated, opposite to each other, 
when the train glided smoothly away. 

Brenda sat a little forward, with her 
gloved hand resting on the window, 
which had been lowered by the guard. 


Sisters 


73 

They were seated on the landward side 
of the train, and as she looked out her 
eyes rested on the rising hills to the 
north, with a vague, unseeing gaze. 

A slight movement made by Mrs. 
Huston caused her at length to look 
across, and the two sisters sat for a 
second searching each other’s eyes for 
the old heartwhole frankness which 
never seems to survive the death of 
childhood and the birth of separate 
interests in life. 

“ Theo,” said the elder woman signifi- 
cantly at last, “ is brave and cool and 
cunning, Brenda.” 

The girl made an effort, but the old 
childish confidence was dead. From 
Theo Trist, the disciple of stoicism, she 
had perhaps learnt something of a creed 
which, if a mistaken one, renders its fol- 
lowers of great value in the world, for they 
never intrude their own private feelings 
upon public attention. That effort was 
the last. It was a beginning in itself — 
the first stone of a wall destined to rise 


74 Suspense 

between the two sisters, built by the 
gray hands of Time. 

“ But,” suggested Brenda, “ Theo is in 
Bulgaria.” 

Mrs. Huston smiled with all the con- 
scious power of a woman who, without 
being actually vain, knows the mar- 
ket value and the moral weight of her 
beauty. 

“Suppose I telegraphed to him that I 
wanted him to come to me at once.” 

Brenda fixed her eyes upon her sister’s 
face. For a second her lip quivered. 

“You must not do that,” she said, in 
such a tone of invincible opposition that 
her sister changed colour, and looked 
somewhat hastily in another direction. 

“ I suppose,” murmured the elder 
woman after a short silence, “that it is 
quite impossible to find out when he may 
return ? ” 

“ Quite impossible. This ‘ Eastern 
Question,’ as it is called, is so compli- 
cated that I have given up trying to fol- 
low it — besides, I do not see what Theo 


Sisters 


75 

has to do with the matter. We must act 
alone, Alice.” 

“ But women are so helpless.” 

Brenda smiled in a slightly ironical 
way. 

“ Why should they be ? ” she asked 
practically. “ I am not afraid of Captain 
Huston. He is a gentleman, at all 
events.” 

“ He was ! ” put in his wife bitterly. 

“ And I suppose there is something left 
of his former self ? ” 

“ Not very much, my dear. At least, 
that phase of his present condition has 
been religiously hidden from my affec- 
tionate gaze.” 

Brenda drew her gloves pensively up 
her wrists, smoothing out the wrinkles 
in the black kid. There was in her 
demeanour an air of capable attention, 
something between that accorded by a 
general to his aide-de-camp on the field 
of battle, and the keen watchfulness of a 
physician while his patient speaks. 

“ Theo,” she said conversationally, 


j6 Suspense 

“would be a great comfort to us. He 
is so steadfast and so entirely reliable. 
But we must do without him. We will 
manage somehow.” 

“ I am horribly afraid, Brenda. It has 
just come to me; I have never felt it 
before. You seem to take it so seriously, 
and . . . and I expected to find Theo at 
home. ” 

“ Theo is one of the energetic men 
with brains who have their own affairs 
to attend to,” said Brenda, in her way. 
“ We are not his affairs ; besides, as I 
mentioned before, he is in Bulgaria — in 
his element, in the midst of confusion, 
insurrection, war.” 

“ But,” repeated Mrs. Huston, with 
aggravating unconsciousness of the ob- 
vious vanity of her words, “ suppose I 
telegraphed for him ? ” 

Brenda laughed, and shook her head. 

“I have a melancholy presentiment 
that if you telegraphed for him he 
would not come. There is a vulgar but 
weighty proverb about making one’s own 


Sisters 


77 

bed, which he might recommend to our 
notice.” 

“ Then Theo must have changed ! ” 
Brenda raised her round blue eyes, 
and glanced sideways out of the window. 
She was playing idly with the strap of 
the sash, tapping the back of her hand 
with it. 


7 8 


Suspense 


CHAPTER VII 

ALICE RETURNS 

I N her pleasant room on the second-floor 
of Suffolk Mansions, Mrs. Wylie 
awaited the arrival of the two sisters. 

From without there came a suggestion 
of bustling life in the continuous hum of 
wheel-traffic and an occasional cry, not 
unmelodious, from enterprising news- 
vendors. Within, everything spoke of 
peaceful, pleasant comfort. There was 
a large table in the centre of the room 
literally covered with periodical and per- 
manent literature — a pleasant table to 
sit by, for there was invariably something 
of interest lying upon it, a safe stimu- 
lant to conversation. The dullest and 
shyest man could always find something 
to say to the ready listener who sat in a 
low cane-chair just beyond the table, near 
the fire, with her back to the window. 


Alice Returns 


79 


There were many strange ornaments 
about, and a number of curiosities such 
as women rarely purchase in foreign 
lands ; also sundry small impedimenta 
suggestive of things nautical. 

Withal there was in the very atmos- 
phere a sense of womanliness. The 
subtle odours emanating from wooden 
constructions, conceived and executed by 
dusky strangers, were overpowered by 
the healthier and livelier smell of flowers. 
Heliotrope nestled modestly in low vases 
from Venice. There was also mignonette, 
and on the mantelpiece a great snowy 
bunch of Japanese anemones thrust into 
a bronze vase from that same distant 
land, all looking, as it were, in different 
directions, each carrying its graceful head 
in a different way, no two alike, and yet 
all lovely, as only God can make things. 

I cannot explain in what lay the charm 
of Mrs. Wylie’s drawing-room, though it 
must have emanated from the lady her- 
self. There is no room like it that I 
know of, where both men and women 


80 Suspense 

experience a sudden feeling of homeli- 
ness, an entire sense of refined ease. The 
surroundings were not too fragile for the 
touch of a man, and yet there was in 
them that subtle influence of grace and 
daintiness which appeals to the more 
delicate fibres of a woman’s soul, and 
makes her recognise her own element. 

The widowed lady herself was little 
changed since we last met her in the Far 
North. But those who knew her well 
were cognizant of the fact that the out- 
ward signs of late bereavement so grace- 
fully worn were no cynical demonstration 
of a conventional grief. The white-haired 
old man sleeping among the nameless sons 
of an Arctic land was as truly mourned by 
this cheerful English woman as ever hus- 
band could desire. There was perhaps a 
smaller show of cultivated grief, such as 
the world loves to contemplate, than was 
strictly in keeping with her widow’s cap. 
No lowered tones pulled up a harmless 
burst of hilarity. No smothered sighs 
were emitted at inappropriate times in 


Alice Returns 


order to impress upon a world, already 
full enough of sorrow, the presence of an 
abiding woe. 

But Brenda Gilholme knew that the 
cure was incomplete. She had carried 
through, to the end, the task left her 
by Trist. The Hermione lay snugly 
anchored by the oozy banks of a Suffolk 
river, and Mrs. Wylie, was, so to speak, 
herself again — that is to say, she was 
once more a woman full of ready sym- 
pathy, gay with the gay, sorrowing with 
the afflicted. At all events, the general 
world opined that Mrs. Wylie was as 
jolly as ever. Moreover, they insinuated 
in a good-natured manner that the 
Admiral was, after all, many years her 
senior, and that she in all human prob- 
ability had some considerable span of 
existence to get through yet, which he 
could not have shared owing to advance 
of infirmity. 

One admirable characteristic had sur- 
vived, however, this change in her life. 
The cheery independence of this lady was 
6 


8 2 Suspense 

untouched by the hand of sorrow. It was 
her creed that at all costs a smile should 
be ready for the world. 

The lady’s quick ear detected the sound 
of a cab suddenly stopping, and when a 
bell rang a few moments later she laid 
aside her work and rose from her seat. 

“ I wonder,” she said, “ of what tragedy 
or comedy this may be the beginning.” 

There was a certain matronly grace in 
her movements as she opened the door 
and drew Brenda Gilholme to her arms. 

“ Alice has come with me ! ” said the 
girl. 

“ Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Wylie, and 
she proceeded to greet the taller sister 
with a kiss also, but of somewhat less 
warmth. 

Then the three ladies passed into the 
drawing-room together. There was a 
momentary pause, during which Mrs. 
Huston mechanically loosened the strings 
of her smart little bonnet and looked 
round the room appreciatively. 

“ How perfectly delicious,” she ex- 


Alice Returns 


83 

claimed, “ it is to see a comfortable Eng- 
lish drawing-room again ! I almost kissed 
the maid who opened the door ; she was 
such a pleasant contrast to sneaking Cing- 
alese servants.” 

Mrs. Wylie smiled sympathetically, but 
became grave again instantaneously. Her 
eyes rested for a second on Brenda’s face. 

“ Alice,” explained Brenda, coming for- 
ward to the fireplace and raising one 
neatly shod foot to the fender, “ does not 
give a very glowing account of Ceylon.” 

“ Nor,” added Mrs. Huston with light 
pathos, “of the blessed state of matri- 
mony.” 

Mrs. Wylie drew forward a chair. 

“Sit down,” she said hospitably, “and 
warm yourselves. We will have some tea 
before you take your things off.” 

“ And now, Alice,” she resumed, after 
seating herself in the softly lined cane 
chair near the literary table, “tell me all 
. . . you wish to tell me.” 

“ Oh,” replied the beautiful woman, re- 
moving her gloves daintily, “ there is not 


84 Suspense 

much to tell. Moreover, the story has 
not the merit even of novelty. The raw 
material is lamentably commonplace, and 
I am afraid I cannot make a very inter- 
esting thing of it. Wretched climate, 
horribly dull station, thirsty husband. 
Voila tout /” 

“To which, however,” suggested Mrs. 
Wylie with a peculiar intonation, “ might 
perhaps be added military society and 
Indian habits.” 

The younger woman shrugged her 
shoulders and laughed. 

“ Oh no ! ” she exclaimed irresponsibly. 
“ But all that is a question of the past, 
and the present is important enough to 
require some attention.” 

She extended her feet to the warmth 
of the fire, and contemplated her small 
boots with some satisfaction. 

“Yes . . . ?” 

“ I have bolted,” she said, replying to 
the inferred query, “ and he is in all prob- 
ability after me.” 

Mrs. Wylie turned aside the screen 


Alice Returns 


85 

which she was holding between her face 
and the fire. Her eyes rested for a mo- 
ment on the speaker’s face, then she 
transferred her attention to Brenda, who 
stood near the mantelpiece with her two 
gloved hands resting on the marble. The 
girl was gazing down between her ex- 
tended arms into the fire. 

“ I am very sorry to hear it,” said the 
widow with conviction. 

“ There was no alternative. I could 
not stand it any longer.” 

“ How did you manage it ? ” asked Mrs. 
Wylie quietly, almost too quietly. 

“ Oh, I got rid of some jewellery, and 
there was a Captain Markynter who was 
kind enough to get my ticket and see 
me off!” 

A peculiar silence followed this cool 
remark. Mrs. Wylie sat quite still, hold- 
ing the palm screen before her face. 
Brenda stood motionless as a statue. Mrs. 
Huston curved her white wrist, and looked 
compassionately at a small red mark made 
by the button of her glove. At length 


86 


Suspense 

the uneasy pause was broken. Without 
moving, Brenda spoke in a cool, clear 
voice, almost monotonous. 

“ Alice,” she explained, “ is a great ad- 
vocate for masculine assistance. She con- 
siders us totally incapable of managing 
our own affairs, and powerless to act for 
ourselves.” 

Mrs. Huston laughed somewhat forced- 
ly, and drew in her feet. 

“It is like this,” she explained. “ If 
my husband catches me I think I shall 
probably kill myself ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Mrs. Wylie mechanically. 

At that moment she was not thinking 
whether her monosyllabic remark was 
cruelly sarcastic or simply silly. Her 
whole mind was devoted to the study of 
Brenda’s face, upon which the firelight 
glowed. 

“ I think,” continued Mrs. Huston, 
“that we may count on a week’s start. 
My affectionate husband cannot be here 
before then.” 

To this neither lady made reply. The 


Alice Returns 87 

servant came in, and in a few moments 
tea was served. 

“ Have you,” asked the widow at length, 
as she stirred her tea placidly, “ thought of 
what you are doing ? ” 

“ Oh yes ! ” was the laughing rejoinder, 
in which however, there was no mirth. 
“ Oh yes ! I have thought, and thought, 
and thought, until the subject was 
thrashed out dry. There was nothing 
else to do but think, and read yellow- 
backed novels, all the voyage home.” 

“ Then,” murmured the widow, with 
gentle interrogation, “ this Captain Par- 
minter did not come home with you?” 

Mrs. Huston changed colour, and her 
lips moved slightly. She glanced towards 
Mrs. Wylie beneath her dark lashes, and 
answered : 

“ No ! And his name is Markynter.” 

The palm-leaf did not move. Presently, 
however, Mrs. Wylie laid it aside, and 
asked for some more tea. 

“Well,” she said cheerily, “I suppose 
we must make the best of a very bad 


88 Suspense 

bargain. What do you propose to do 
next ? ” 

In the most natural and confiding 
way imaginable, Mrs. Huston looked up 
towards her sister, who was still standing. 
There was an almost imperceptible shrug 
of her shoulders. 

“ Brenda,” she answered, “ says that I 
must run away and hide in some small 
village, which is not exactly a cheerful 
prospect.” 

“ It would hardly do,” said Brenda, as 
if in defence of her own theory, “ to go 
down to Brighton and stay at the Bed- 
ford Hotel for instance.” 

“ If,” added Mrs. Wylie in the same 
tone, “ you really want to avoid your hus- 
band, you must certainly hide; but I do 
not see what you can gain by such a pro- 
ceeding. It can never be permanent, and 
you will soon get tired of chasing each 
other round England.” 

“ Perhaps he will get tired of it first.” 

“ If he does, what will your position be ? 
Somewhat ambiguous, I imagine.” 


Alice Returns 89 

“It cannot be worse than it is at 
present.” 

“ Oh yes,” replied the widow calmly. 
“ It can ! ” 

She set her empty cup on the tray, 
and sat with her two hands clasped 
together on her lap. She had not come 
through fifty years of life, this placid 
lady, without learning something of the 
world’s ways, and she recognised instantly 
what Alice Huston’s position was. It 
was the old story which is told every 
day in all parts of the world, more espe- 
cially, perhaps, in India — the wearisome 
tale of a mistaken marriage between a man 
of small intellect and a woman of less. 

Captain Huston’s military duties were 
not such as occupied more than a few 
hours of the week, and during the rest 
of his existence he was actively idle. His 
mind was fallow ; he was totally with- 
out resource, without occupation, without 
interest. 

If Alice Gilholme had searched through 
the entire army-list, she could scarcely 


go Suspense 

have found a man less suitable to be her 
husband than Captain Huston. Petty, 
short-sighted jealousy on his part, vapid 
coquetry on hers, soon led to the in- 
evitable end, and the result was thrown 
upon the hands of Brenda and Mrs. 
Wylie with easy nonchalance by the 
spoilt child of society. 

Before the three ladies had spoken 
further upon the subject chiefly occupy- 
ing their thoughts, the drawing-room 
door was thrown open, and with studied 
grace William Hicks crossed the threshold. 

The hat that he carried daintily in 
his left hand was not quite the same in 
contour as those worn by his contempo- 
raries. To ensure this peculiarity, the 
artist was forced to send to Paris for his 
head-gear, where he paid a higher price 
and received an inferior article. But the 
distinction conferred by a unique hat 
is practically immeasurable and without 
price. Mr. Hicks’ gloves were also out 
of the common ; likewise his strangely- 
cut coat. 


Alice Returns 91 

The tout ensemble was undoubtedly 
pleasing. It must have been so, because 
he was obviously satisfied, and the 
artistic eye is the acknowledged arbi- 
trator in matters of outward adornment, 
whether it be of mantelshelves or human 
forms divine. 

The three ladies turned to greet him 
with that ready feminine smile which is 
ever there to lubricate matters when the 
social wheel may squeak or grate. 

“ Oh, bother ! ” whispered Brenda to 
herself, as she held out her hand. 

“ What ? ” exclaimed Hicks, with lan- 
guid surprise and visibly deep pleasure. 
“ Mrs. Huston ! I am delighted. When I 
left my studio and plunged into all this 
mist and gloom this afternoon, I never 
thought that both would be dispelled 
so suddenly.” 

“Is it dispelled ?” asked Mrs. Huston, 
glancing playfully towards the window. 

“ In here it is. But then,” he added, as 
he shook hands with Mrs. Wylie, “ there 
is never any mist or gloom in this room.” 


92 


Suspense 

With a pleasant laugh, as if deprecat- 
ing his own folly, he turned to greet 
Brenda, who had stood near the mantel- 
piece with her gloved hand extended. 
Then his manner changed. Moreover, 
it was a distinctly advantageous altera- 
tion. One would have imagined, from 
the expression of his handsome but 
weak face, that if there was anybody on 
earth whom he respected and admired, 
almost as much as he respected and 
admired William Hicks, that person was 
Brenda. 

For her he had no neatly-turned 
pleasantry — no easy, infectious laugh. 

“ I did not know you were coming 
home, Mrs. Huston,” he said, turning 
again to that lady. Then his social 
training enabled him to detect unerringly 
that he might be on a dangerous trail, 
and with ready skill he turned aside. 
“ This is not the best time of year,” he 
continued, to return to your native 
shores. Personally I am rather disgusted 
with the shore in question, but we must 


Alice Returns 


93 


surely hope for some more sunshine 
before we finally bid farewell to the orb 
of day for the winter. We poor artists 
are the chief sufferers, I am sure.” 

“At all events,” put in Mrs. Wylie 
easily, “ you take it upon yourselves to 
grumble most. There is always some- 
thing to displease you — the want of 
daylight, the scarcity of buyers, or the 
hopeless stupidity of the hanging- 
committee.” 

“ I think I confine my observations to 
the weather,” murmured Hicks, gazing 
sadly into the fire, towards which bourne 
Brenda’s glance was also apparently di- 
rected, for she presently pressed the 
glowing coals down with the sole of her 
boot, and quite lost the studied poesy 
of the artist’s expression. “ I am, I 
think,” he continued humbly, “ indepen- 
dent of buyers and hanging-committees. 
I do not exhibit at Burlington House, 
and you know I never sell.” 

“ Indeed,” said Mrs. Huston, with slight 
interest, for the elder lady had turned 


94 


Suspense 

away and was busy with her second cup 
of tea, which was almost cold. 

“No,” answered Hicks, with the eager- 
ness that comes to egotistical talkers 
when they are sure of a new listener. 
“No. I don’t care to enter into compe- 
tition with men who depend more upon 
conventional training than natural talent. 
The Royal Academy is only a human 
institution, and, perhaps, it is only nat- 
ural that their own students should be 
favoured before all others. I am not an 
Academy student, you know ! ” 

Mrs. Huston contented herself with 
no more compromising affirmative than 
a gracious inclination of the head. It is 
just possible that, fresh from Ceylon, 
and consequently deplorably ignorant of 
artistic affairs as she was, the knowledge 
that William Hicks was not an Academy 
student had been denied her. This most 
lamentable fact, however, if it existed, 
she concealed with all the cleverness of 
her sex, and Hicks came to the con- 
clusion, later on, that she must have 


Alice Returns 


95 

known. He could not conceive it pos- 
sible that a woman moving in intelli- 
gent circles, although in the outer rims 
thereof, and far from the living centre of 
Kensington, could be unaware of such 
an important item in his own personal 
history; this being no mean part of the 
artistic history of the nineteenth century. 

Enveloped as he was, however, in con- 
ceit, he had the good taste to perceive 
that his bewildering presence was on this 
particular occasion liable to be considered 
bliss of an alloyed description, and in a 
short time he took his leave. 

As he was moving round and saying 
good-bye, Mrs. Huston returned to the 
artistic question, from which they had 
never strayed very far. Indeed, art was 
somewhat apt to become a nauseating 
subject of conversation wherever William 
Hicks was allowed to influence matters 
to any extent. 

“You have never sent pictures to the 
Academy, then? ” she asked innocently. 

“ Oh no ! ” he answered with mild 


horror. “ Good-bye, so glad to see you 
home again.” 

And then he vanished. 

Mrs. Wylie watched his retreating 
figure with a pleasant and sociable ex- 
pression on her intelligent face. 

“ That,” she was reflecting, “ is a lie ! ” 
She happened to know that Hicks had 
been refused a place on the walls of 
Burlington House. 

“ Whew! ” reflected Hicks on the stairs; 
“ ran right into it. She ’s left him ; I 
could see that. Seems to me she’s on 
the verge of a catastrophe — divorce or 
separation, or something like that.” 

In the drawing-room Mrs. Wylie was 
saying reflectively to either or both of 
her companions : 

“This is the beginning of it. That 
man will tell everyone he meets before 
going to bed to-night that you are home. 
He did not ask where your husband was, 
which shows that he wanted to know; 
consequently he will wonder over it, and 
will take care to tell everyone what he 
is wondering about.” 


To the Front 


97 


CHAPTER VIII 


TO THE FRONT 



WEEK later Brenda was sitting in 


ii the same apartment again. But 
this time she was alone. From pure 
kindness of heart Mrs. Wylie had man- 
aged to allow her an afternoon’s leisure, 
and Brenda was spending this very hap- 
pily amidst her books and magazines, 
when the maid opened the drawing-room 
door, with the mumbled announcement 
of a name to whose possessor no door of 
Mrs. Wylie’s was ever shut. She failed 
to hear the name, and half turned her 
head without much welcome in her eyes. 

She was preparing to rise politely from 
her seat when a dark form passed between 
the window and herself. There, upon the 
hearthrug, within touch of her black skirt, 
stood Trist! with a brown face, and his 
bland, high forehead divided into two por- 


7 


98 Suspense 

tions of white and of mahogany, where 
the fez had rested, keeping off the burn- 
ing sun, but casting no shadow. 

Brenda gave a little gasp, and the eyes 
that met his were, for a second, con- 
tracted with some quick emotion, which 
he thought was fear. 

“ Theo ! ” she exclaimed. Then she 
stopped short, checking herself suddenly, 
and as she rose he saw the frightened 
look in her eyes again. 

They shook hands, and for a brief 
moment neither seemed able to frame a 
syllable. Brenda’s lips were dry, and her 
throat was parched — all in a second. 

He looked round the room as if seek- 
ing someone, or the indication of a pres- 
ence, such as a work-basket, a well-known 
book, or some similar token. Brenda 
concluded that he was wondering where 
Mrs. Wylie might be, and suddenly she 
found power to speak in a steady, even 
voice. 

“Mrs. Wylie is out!” she said. “I 
expect her in by tea-time.” 


To the Front 


99 

He nodded his head — indicated the 
chair which she had just left — and, 
when she was seated, knelt down on the 
hearthrug, holding his two hands to the 
fire. 

“ Where is Alice ? ” he asked, in a pecu- 
liar monotone. 

“ She is out with Mrs. Wylie — Then 
. . . you know ? ” 

“Yes, Brenda, I know!” he answered 
gravely. 

The girl sat forward in her low chair, 
with her two arms resting upon her knees, 
her slim, white hands interlocked. For a 
time she was off her guard, forgetting the 
outward composure taught in the school 
of which she was so apt a pupil. She 
actually allowed herself to breathe hur- 
riedly, to lean forward, and drink in with 
her eager eyes the man’s every feature 
and every movement. He was not look- 
ing towards her, but of her fixed gaze he 
was well aware. The sound of her quick 
respiration was close to his ear. With all 
his iron composure, despite his cruel hold 


i oo Suspense 

over himself, he wavered for a moment, 
and the hands held out to the glow of 
the fire shook perceptibly. But his meek 
eyes never lost their settled expression of 
speculative contemplation. The flame 
leapt up, and fell again with a little bub- 
bling sound, glowing ruddily upon the 
two faces. He remained quite motion- 
less, quite cold. 

Presently Brenda leant back in the 
chair. There was a screen on the table 
near her — Mrs. Wylie’s palm-leaf — and 
she extended her hand to take it, holding 
it subsequently between her face and the 
fire, so that if Trist had turned his head 
he could not have seen anything but her 
hand and wrist, and the screen glowing 
rosily. He did not turn, however, when 
he spoke. 

“ I will tell you,” he said, “ how I came 
to know.” 

Before continuing, he rubbed his hands 
slowly together. Then he rose from his 
knees and remained standing near the 
fire close to her, but without looking in 


To the Front ioi 

her direction. He seemed to be choosing 
his words. 

“ I came home,” he said at length, 
“ from Gibraltar in an Indian steamer, a 
small boat with half a dozen passengers. 
There was no doctor on board. One 
evening I was asked to go forward and 
look at a second-class passenger who 
was suffering from . . . from delirium 
tremens.” 

He stopped in an apologetic way, as if 
begging her indulgence for the use of 
those two words in her presence. 

“Yes . . .” she murmured encourag- 
ingly. 

“ It was Huston.” 

As he spoke he turned slightly, and 
glanced down at her. She had entirely 
regained her gentle composure now, and 
the colour had returned to her face. Her 
attention was given to his words with a 
certain suppressed anxiety, but no sur- 
prise whatever. 

“ Did,” she asked at length — “ did he 
recognise you ? ” 


102 


Suspense 


“ No.” 

“ And he never knew, and does not 
know now, that you were on board ? ” 

It would seem that he divined her 
thoughts, detecting the hidden impor- 
tance of her question. 

“ No,” he answered meaningly, as he 
turned and looked down at her — “ no ; 
but he has not forgotten my existence.” 

She raised her eyes quickly, but their 
glance stopped short suddenly at the 
elevation of his lips. It was only by an 
effort that she avoided meeting his gaze. 

“ I do not know,” she said with a short 
laugh, in an explanatory way, “ much 
about . . . about it. Is it like ordinary 
delirium, where people talk in a broken 
manner without realizing what they are 
saying ? ” 

“Yes; it is rather like that.” 

She examined the texture of the screen 
with some attention. 

“ Do you mind telling me, Theo,” she 
asked at length evenly, “ whether he men- 
tioned your name ? ” 


To the Front 


io 3 

T rist reflected for a moment. He moved 
restlessly from one foot to the other, then 
spoke in a voice which betrayed no emotion 
beyond regret and a hesitating sympathy. 

“ He said that Alice had run away to 
join her old lover — meaning me.” 

“ Are you sure he meant . . . you ? ” 

“ He mentioned my name ; there could 
be no doubt about it.” 

Brenda rose suddenly from her seat and 
crossed the room towards the window. 
There she stood with her back towards 
him, a dark silhouette against the dying 
light, looking into the street. 

He moved slightly, but did not attempt 
to follow her. 

“ It is rather strange,” she said at length, 
“ that the first name she mentioned on 
landing at Plymouth should be yours.” 

A look of blank surprise flashed across 
his face, and then he reflected gravely for 
some moments. 

“ I am sorry to hear it,” he said slowly, 
“because it would seem that my name 
has been bandied between them, and if 


x 04 Suspense 

that is the case my hands are tied. I 
cannot help Alice as I should have liked 
to do.” 

“ I told Alice some time ago that it 
would be much better for us to manage 
this . . . this miserable affair without 
your help.” 

“You are equal to it,” he said deliber- 
ately. 

She laughed with a faint gleam of her 
habitual brightness. 

“ Thank you. That is gratifying, but 
it is hardly the question.” 

“ My help,” he continued, “ need not be 
obvious to every casual observer. But I 
am not going to leave you to fight this 
out alone, Brenda. I was forced to leave 
you once, and I am not going to do it 
again. What does Mrs. Wylie say to 
it all ? ” 

“ Nothing as yet. She is waiting on 
events.” 

“ Ah, then, she is in reserve as usual. 
When the time comes, we may rely upon 
her help. But until then . . 


To the Front 


10 5 

“ Theo,” interrupted Brenda in an anx- 
ious voice, “ the time has come ! ” 

She started back from the window, her 
face as white as her throat. 

“ He is there ! ” she whispered pointing 
towards the window — “ in the street. 
Coming into the house ! ” 

“ Come,” he said quickly — “ come into 
another room. I will see him here.” 

As he spoke he gently urged her 
towards the door, but she resisted. 

“ No,” she said, “ I will see him. It is 
better. Alice may come in at any mo- 
ment, and before then I must know how 
matters stand between them.” 

Trist hesitated, and at that moment 
the bell rang. They stood side by side 
looking at the closed door, listening pain- 
fully. 

“ Perhaps,” whispered Trist, “ the maid 
will say that Mrs. Wylie is out.” 

They could hear the light footstep of 
the servant, then the click of the latch. 

A murmur of words followed, ending 
in the raised tone of a male voice and a 


1 06 Suspense 

short sharp exclamation of fear from the 
maid. 

Instinctively Trist sprang towards the 
door. 

There was a sound of heavy footsteps 
in the passage. Trist’s fingers were on 
the handle. He glanced towards Brenda 
appealingly. 

“ Leave it ! ” she exclaimed. “ Let him 
come in.” 

Before the words were out of her lips 
the door was thrown open, concealing 
Trist. 


Under Fire 


107 


CHAPTER IX 


UNDER FIRE 



TALL, well-built man entered the 


iA room hurriedly and stopped short, 
facing Brenda, who met his gaze with self- 
possession. 

“ Ah ! ” he muttered in a thick voice, 
and his unsteady hand went to his long, 
fair moustache. 

It was a terribly unhealthy face upon 
which Brenda’s eyes rested inquiringly. 
The skin was cracked in places, and the 
cheeks were almost blue. The eyelids 
were red and the eyes bloodshot, while 
there was a general suggestion of puffi- 
ness and discomfort in the swollen feat- 
ures. The man was distinctly repulsive, 
and yet, with a small amount of tolerance, 
he was a figure to demand pity. Despite 
his dissipated air, there was that indefinite 


108 Suspense 

sense of refinement which belongs to birth 
and breeding, and which never leaves a 
man who has once moved among gentle- 
men. There was even a faint suggestion 
of military vanity in his dress and car- 
riage, though his figure was by no means 
so smart as it must have been in bygone 
days. 

The room was rather dark, and he 
glanced round, failing to see Theo Trist, 
who was leaning against the wall behind 
him. 

“ Ah ! ” he repeated ; “ Brenda. I sup- 
pose you are in it, too ! ” 

She made no reply. 

“ Tell me,” he continued thickly, “ where 
my wife is to be found.” 

Trist noticed that she never took her 
eyes off Huston’s face, never glanced past 
the sleek, closely-cropped head towards 
himself. In some subtle way her wish 
was conveyed to him — the wish that he 
should remain there and continue, if pos- 
sible, to be unnoticed by Huston. This 
he did, leaning against the wall, his meek 


Under Fire 


109 

eyes riveted on the girl’s face with a calm, 
expectant attention. From his presence 
Brenda gathered that strength and self- 
reliance which God intends women to 
gather from the companionship of men. 

“ No, Alfred,” she answered, using his 
Christian name with a diplomacy which 
made him waver for a moment and sway 
backwards upon his rigid legs; “ I must 
not tell you that yet.” 

“ What right have you to withhold it ? ” 

“She is my sister. I must do the best 
I can for her.” 

He laughed in an unpleasant way. 

“ By throwing her into the path of the 
man she has always — ” 

“ Stop ! ” commanded Brenda. 

“ Why ? Why should I stop ? I sup- 
pose Trist is in England. That is why 
she came home, no doubt.” 

“ She has never spoken to Theodore 
Trist since she married you. Besides, 
that is not the question. Tell me why 
you want to find Alice. What do you 
propose to do ? ” 


I IO 


Suspense 

“ That is my affair ! ” he muttered 
roughly. “ You have no business to stand 
between man and wife. If you persist in 
doing so, it must be at your own risk, and 
I tell you plainly that you run a chance of 
being roughly handled.” 

As he spoke he advanced a pace men- 
acingly. Still she never betrayed Trist’s 
presence by the merest glance in his 
direction. He, however, moved slightly, 
without making any sound. 

Huston looked slowly round the room 
with bloodshot, horrible eyes. 

“ Tell me ! ” he repeated, thrusting for- 
ward his face so that she drew back — 
not from fear, but to avoid a faint aroma 
of stale cigar-smoke. 

“ No ! ” she answered. 

“Deny that Trist loved Alice — if you 
dare ! ” he continued, in the same thick 
voice. 

Still she never called for Trist’s assist- 
ance. She was very pale, and the last 
words seemed to strike her in the face as 
a blow. 


Under Fire 


1 1 1 


“ I deny nothing ! ” 

“ Tell me,” he shouted hoarsely, “ where 
Alice is ! ” 

“ No ! ” 

He advanced suddenly in an access of 
rage. It certainly looked as if he were 
about to strike her. 

Without a sound Trist sprang forward, 
and the same instant saw Huston fall to 
the ground. He rolled over and over, a 
shapeless mass with limbs distended, and 
lay motionless, with limp hands and open 
mouth. He was insensible. 

Leaving him, Trist turned to Brenda, 
who was already holding him back with 
a physical force which even at that 
moment caused him a vague surprise. 

“ Theo ! ” she cried, “ what are you 
doing ? ” 

He looked into her face sharply, almost 
fiercely — and she caught her breath con- 
vulsively at the sight of his eyes. They 
literally flashed with a dull blue gleam, 
which was all the more ghastly in so 
calm a face ; for though he was ashen- 


I 12 


Suspense 

gray in colour, his features were unaltered 
by any sign of passion. Even in his rage 
this man was incongruous. 

“ Has he hurt you ? ” he asked in a 
dull, hollow voice; and, while he spoke, 
his fingers skilfully touched her shoulder 
in a quick, searching way never learnt in 
drawing-rooms. 

“No — no!” she cried impatiently. 
“ But you have killed him ! ” 

She broke away from him and knelt 
on the floor, bending over the prostrate 
form of the soldier. 

“ Don’t touch him,” said Trist, in an 
unconsciously commanding tone. “ He 
is all right.” 

Obediently, she rose and stepped away, 
while he lifted the limp form, and placed 
it in a chair. 

Slowly Captain Huston opened his 
eyes. He heaved a deep sigh, and sat 
gazing into the fire with a hopeless and 
miserable apathy. Behind him the two 
stood motionless, watching. Presently 
he began to mutter incoherently, and 


Under Fire 


IJ 3 

Brenda turned away, sickened, from the 
woeful sight. 

“ I wonder,” she whispered, “ if this sort 
of thing is to go on.” 

Trist’s mobile lips were twisted a little 
as if he were in bodily pain, while he 
glanced at her furtively. There was 
nothing for him to say — no hope to 
hold out. 

They moved away to the window to- 
gether without speaking, both occupied 
with thoughts which could not well have 
been pleasant. Trist’s features wore a 
grave, concentrated expression, totally un- 
like the philosophical and contemplative 
demeanour which he usually carried in 
the face of the world. There was food 
enough for mental stones to grind, and 
he was not a man to take the most 
sanguine view of affairs. His philosophy 
was of that rare school which is not 
solely confined to making the best of 
other folks’ troubles. His own checks 
and difficulties were those treated philo- 
sophically; while the griefs of others — 
8 


1 1 4 Suspense 

more especially, perhaps, of Alice and 
Brenda — caused him an exaggerated 
anxiety. 

In Trist’s place many would have 
uttered some trite consolatory or wildly 
hopeful remark, which would in no wise 
have deceived a person of Brenda’s austere 
discrimination. In this, however, he fell 
lamentably short of his duty. After a 
thoughtful pause he merely whispered : 

“ There is nothing to be done but face 
it.” 

“ Is it,” she asked simply, “ a case for 
action, or must we wait upon events ? ” 

“We must act.” 

“Yes . . .” she said, in little more than 
a whisper, after a pause, “ I think so too 
— more especially now . . . that you sug- 
gest it.” 

He smiled slowly. 

“ Perhaps . . . so ! ” 

“ I feel,” he said, with some delibera- 
tion, “ that it will be better to keep them 
apart in the meantime.” 

A strange, uneasy look passed across 


Under Fire 


11 5 

the girl’s face. It happened that there 
was only one man on all the broad earth 
whom she trusted implicitly — the man 
at her side — and for a second that one 
unique faith wavered. With a sort of 
mental jerk — as of a person who makes 
a quick effort to recover a wavering 
balance — she restored her courageous 
trustfulness. 

“Yes,” she murmured, “ I am sure of it.” 

“And I suppose ... I suppose we 
must do it. You and I, Brenda?” 

It was a wonderful thing how these two 
knew Alice Huston. Her faults were 
never mentioned between them. The 
infinite charity with which each looked 
upon these faults was a mutual posses- 
sion, unhinted at, half concealed. Brenda 
knew quite well what was written be- 
tween the lines of his outspoken suppo- 
sition, and replied to his unasked question 
with simple diplomacy. 

“Yes — we must do it.” 

Trist moved a little. He turned side- 
ways, and glanced out of the window. 


1 1 6 Suspense 

His attitude was that of a man whose 
hands were in his pockets, but he was 
more than half a soldier — a creature 
morally and literally without pockets — 
and his hands hung at his sides. 

The last words might easily have 
passed unheeded, but Brenda felt, even 
as she spoke them, that they contained 
another meaning ; moreover, she recog- 
nised by his sudden silence that Trist 
was wondering whether this second sug- 
gestion had been intended. Uneasily she 
raised her eyes to his face. He was look- 
ing down at her gravely, and for some 
seconds their glances met. 

If an excuse to seek Mrs. Wylie’s assist- 
ance was hard to find, much more so 
was it open to question respecting Trist’s 
spontaneous help. Why should he offer 
it ? By what right could she accept it ? 
And while they looked into each other’s 
eyes, these two wondered over those small 
questions. There was a reason — the 
best reason of all — namely, that the offer 
was as spontaneous and natural as the 


Under Fire 


117 

acceptance of it. But why — why this 
spontaneity? Perhaps they both knew. 
Perhaps she suspected, and suspected 
wrongly. Perhaps neither knew definitely. 

At last she turned her head, and natu- 
rally her glance was directed downwards 
into Piccadilly. 

“ There they are,” she whispered hur- 
riedly, “ looking into the jeweller’s shop 
opposite. What are we to do, Theo? ” 

He almost forestalled her question, so 
rapid was his answer. There was no 
hesitation, no shirking of responsibility. 
She had simply asked him, and simply he 
replied. 

“ Go,” he said, “ and throw some things 
into a bag. I will stay here and watch 
him. When the bag is ready, leave it in 
the passage and come back here. I will 
take it, go down, and take her straight 
away.” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” he replied, with a shrug 
of the shoulders. 

There was a momentary hesitation on 


1 1 8 Suspense 

the girl’s part. She perceived a terrible 
flaw in Trist’s plan, and he divined her 
thoughts. 

“It will be all right,” he whispered. 
“No one knows that I am in England. 
I will telegraph to-night, and you can join 
her to-morrow. You . . . can trust me, 
Brenda.” 

There was a faint smile of confidence 
on her face as she turned away and hur- 
ried from the room. 

Although her light footsteps were al- 
most inaudible, the slight frolement of her 
dress seemed to rouse the stupefied man 
on the low chair near the fire. Perhaps 
there was in the rhythm of her movements 
some subtle resemblance to the move- 
ments of his wife. He raised his head 
and appeared to listen in an apathetic 
way, but presently his chin dropped heav- 
ily again upon his breast, and the dull 
eyes lost all light of intelligence. 

Trist turned away and looked out of 
the window. The two ladies were still 
lingering near the jeweller’s shop. Alice 


Under Fire 


119 

Huston appeared to be pointing out to 
her companion some specially attractive 
ornament, and Mrs. Wylie was obeying 
with a patient smile. 

The war-correspondent smiled in a 
peculiar way, which might well have ex- 
pressed some bitterness, had he been the 
sort of man to speak or think bitterly of 
anyone. The whole picture was so ab- 
surdly characteristic, even to the small 
details — such as Mrs. Wylie’s good-na- 
tured patience, scarce concealing her utter 
lack of interest in the jewellery, and Alice 
Huston’s eyes glittering with reflex of the 
cold gleam of diamonds; for there is a 
light that comes into the eyes of some 
women at the mere mention of precious 
stones. 

While he was watching them the ladies 
turned and crossed the street, coming 
towards him. He stepped back from the 
window in case one of them should raise 
her eyes, and at the same moment Brenda 
entered the room. 

She glanced towards Huston who was 


120 


Suspense 

rousing himself from the torpor which 
had followed his maltreatment at Trist’s 
hands, and which was doubtless partly 
due to the drink-sodden condition of his 
mind and body. 

“ All I want,” whispered the war-corre- 
spondent, following her glance, “is three 
minutes’ start from that man.” 

“You had better go!” she answered 
anxiously below her breath. 

“Yes; they are on the stairs . . . but 
. . . tell me, Brenda, promise me on your 
honour, that he did not hurt you.” 

“ I promise you,” she said, with 
smile. 

Then he left her. 


a faint 


Trist Acts 


I 2 I 


CHAPTER X 

TRIST ACTS ON HIS OWN RESPONSIBILITY 



S Mrs. Wylie made her way slowly 


^ and peacefully up the broad stairs, 
she suddenly found herself face to face 
with the man whom she had last seen in the 
still Arctic dawn, bearing the body of her 
dead husband down over the rocks towards 
her. She gave a little gasp of surprise, 
but nothing more. The next instant she 
was holding out her gloved hand to greet 
him. But even she — practised woman 
of the world as she was — could not meet 
him with a smile. In gravity they had 
parted, gravely they now met again. 

He had taken her quite unawares, with 
that noiseless footstep of his, and the 
colour left her face for a moment. 

“You!” she exclaimed; “I did not 
expect you ” 

From his manner even Mrs. Wylie 


I 22 


Suspense 

could gather nothing, and she was no 
mean reader of human faces. She 
glanced at him as they stood together 
on the stairs and asked herself a question : 

“ What part is he playing, that of a 
scoundrel or a fool?” 

She could not conceive a third alterna- 
tive just then, because she did not know 
Alice Huston so well as Theo Trist knew 
her. 

Before Mrs. Huston, who was blush- 
ing very prettily, had time to speak, 
Trist imparted his news with a certain 
rapid bluntness. 

“Your husband is upstairs,” he said. 
“ Brenda will keep him in the drawing- 
room for a few minutes. I have a bag 
here with some necessaries for you. 
Will you come with me, or will you go 
upstairs to your husband ? ” 

“Will ... I ... go with you?” stam- 
mered the beautiful woman in a fright- 
ened whisper. “ Where to, Theo ? ” 

Mrs. Wylie leant against the broad 
balustrade and breathed rapidly. She 


Trist Acts 


123 

was really alarmed, but even fear could 
not conquer her indomitable placidity. 

“ I will see you to a safe hiding- 
place to-night, and Brenda will join you 
to-morrow morning,” said Trist in a tone 
full of concentrated energy, though his 
eyes never lighted up. “ Be quick and 
decide, because Brenda is alone upstairs 
with . . . him.” 

Mrs. Wylie’s eyebrows moved imper- 
ceptibly beneath her veil. She thought 
she saw light. 

Mrs. Huston played nervously with a 
tassel that was hanging from her muff 
for the space of a moment; then she 
raised her eyes, not to Trist’s face, but 
to Mrs. Wylie’s. Instantly she lowered 
them again. 

“ I will go with you ! ” she said, almost 
inaudibly, and stood blushing like a 
school-girl between two lovers. 

Mrs. Wylie raised her head, sniffing 
danger like an old hen when she hears 
the swoop of long wings above the 
chicken-yard. Her glance turned from 


124 


Suspense 

Alice Huston’s face, with a slow im- 
patience almost amounting to contempt, 
and rested upon Theodore Trist’s meek 
eyes, raised to meet hers meaningly. 
Then somehow her honest tongue found 
itself tied, and she said nothing at all. 
The flood of angry words subsided 
suddenly from her lips, and she waited 
for the further commands of this soft- 
spoken, soft-stepping, soft-glancing man, 
with unquestioning obedience. 

He moved slightly, looked down at 
the bag in his hand, and then glanced 
comprehensively from the top of Mrs. 
Huston’s smart bonnet to the sole of 
her small shoe. He could not quite 
lay aside the old campaigner, and the 
beautiful woman was moved by a strange 
suspicion that this young man was not 
admiring her person but considering 
whether her attire were fit for a long 
journey on a November evening. 

“ Come, then ! ” he said. 

Still Mrs. Huston hesitated. 

Suddenly she appeared to make up 


Trist Acts 


I2 5 

her mind, for she went up two steps 
and kissed Mrs. Wylie with hysterical 
warmth. This demonstration seemed to 
recall Trist to a due sense of social 
formula. He returned, and shook hands 
gravely with the widow. 

“ Go to Brenda ! ” he said, and the 
matron bowed her head. 

Again she raised her eyebrows, and 
there was a flicker of light in her eyes 
like that which gleams momentarily when 
a person is on the brink of a great dis- 
covery. 

The next minute she was running up- 
stairs, while the footsteps of the two fugi- 
tives died away in the roar of traffic. 

“ Theo,” she said to herself, while await- 
ing an answer to her summons at her own 
door, “ must be of a very confiding nature. 
He expects such utter and such blind 
faith at the hands of others.” 

The maid who opened the door was 
all eagerness to impart to her mistress 
certain vague details and incomprehen- 
sible sounds which had reached her curi- 


1 26 


Suspense 

ous ears. She had a thrilling tale of how 
Captain Huston had rung loudly and 
pushed roughly through the open door; 
how there had been loud words in the 
drawing-room, and then a noise like “ mov- 
in’ a pianer ” ; how a silence had followed, 
and, finally, how Mr. Trist (and not Cap- 
tain Huston, as might have been expected) 
had left just a minute ago. But the even- 
ing milkman was destined, after all, to 
receive the first and unabridged account 
of these events. Mrs. Wylie merely said, 
“ That will do, Mary,” in her unruffled 
way, and passed on. 

She entered the drawing-room, and 
found Brenda standing near the window, 
with one hand clasping the folds of the 
curtain. 

Captain Huston was sitting on a low 
chair beside the fire, weeping gently. 
His bibulous sobs were the only sound 
that broke an unpleasant silence. Brenda 
was engaged in adding to her experiences 
of men and their ways a further illustra- 
tion tending towards contempt. 


Trist Acts 


12 7 

“ He is quite gentle and tractable now ! ” 
she whispered. 

Mrs. Wylie took her hand within her 
fingers, clasping it with a soft protecting 
strength. 

“ Is he . . • tipsy ? ” 

“ No ! ” answered Brenda, with a pecu- 
liar catch in her breath ; “ he is only 
stupefied.” 

“ Stupefied . . . how ? ” 

“ I ... I will tell you afterwards.” 

The quick-witted matron had already 
discovered that some of her furniture was 
slightly displaced, so she did not press 
her question. 

At this moment Captain Huston rose 
to his feet, and took up a position on the 
hearthrug. 

“ I do not know,” he said, with concen- 
trated calmness, “ whether the law has 
anything to say against people who har- 
bour runaway wives; but, at all events, 
society will have an opinion on the 
subject.” 

He ignored the fact that he had in no 


128 Suspense 

way greeted Mrs. Wylie, addressing his re- 
marks to both ladies impartially. By both 
alike his attack was received in silence. 

“ I will find her,” he continued. “You 
need have no false hopes on that score. 
All the Theodore Trists in the world 
(which is saying much — for scoundrels 
are common enough) will not be able to 
hide her for long ! ” 

Mrs. Wylie still held Brenda’s hand 
within her own. At the mention of 
Trist’s name there was an involuntary 
contraction of the white fingers, and the 
widow suddenly determined to act. 

“Captain Huston,” she said gravely, 
“when you are calmer, if you wish to 
talk of this matter again, Brenda and I 
will be at your service. At present I am 
convinced that it is better for your wife 
to keep away from you — though I shall 
be the first to welcome a reconciliation.” 

He shrugged his shoulders and walked 
slowly to the door. It was Brenda who 
rang the bell. Captain Huston passed 
out of the room without another word. 


Trist Acts 


1 29 


It would almost seem that the ingenu- 
ous Mary anticipated the call, for she was 
waiting in the passage to show Captain 
Huston out She returned almost at once 
to the drawing-room, with a view (cloaked 
beneath a prepared question respecting 
tea) of satisfying her curiosity regarding 
the sound which had suggested the mov- 
ing of a “ pianer.” But there was no 
sign of disorder ; everything was in its 
place, and Brenda was standing idly near 
the mantelpiece. 

“We will take tea at once, Mary,” 
said Mrs. Wylie, unloosening her bonnet- 
strings. 

Mary was forced to retire, meditating 
as she went over the inscrutability and 
coldness of the ordinary British lady. 

“Ah!” sighed Mrs. Wylie, when the 
door was closed. “ Now tell me, Brenda ! 
What has happened? Did these two men 
meet here ? I am quite in the dark, and 
have a sort of dazed feeling, as if I had 
been reading Carlyle at the French plays, 

and had got them mixed up.” 

9 


130 Suspense 

“ Theo came first,” answered Brenda, 
“to warn us that Captain Huston had 
come home in the same steamer as him- 
self, without, however, recognizing him. 
While we were talking the other came in. 
He did not see Theo, who was behind the 
door. . . .” 

“ I suppose he was tipsy ? ” 

“No; he was quite sober. He looked 
horrible. His eyes were bloodshot — his 
lips unsteady . . .” 

Mrs. Wylie stopped the description 
with a sharp, painful nod of her head. 

“ Was he quite clear and coherent ? ” 

“Yes!” 

“ But . . . just now . . .” argued Mrs. 
Wylie, vainly endeavouring to make 
Brenda resume the narrative — “just now 
he was quite stupid ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What happened, Brenda ? ” 

At this moment Mary brought in the 
tea and set it briskly down on a small 
table. Brenda stepped forward, and began 
pouring out. 


Trist Acts 


1 3 1 

“ What happened, Brenda ? ” repeated 
Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed. 

Then she approached, took the teapot 
from her hand, and by gentle force turned 
the motherless girl’s face towards herself. 

“ My darling,” she whispered, drawing 
the slim form to her breast, “why should 
you hide your tears from me? ” 

“ He came in, and asked me to tell him 
where Alice was. I refused, and then . . .” 

“Then . . .?” 

“ He tried to hit me.” 

“Tried . . . Brenda?” 

“ Well . . . he just reached me.” 

“And . . . Theo?” asked Mrs. Wylie. 
“ What did Theo do ? ” 

There was a short pause, during which 
both ladies attended to their cups with an 
unnatural interest. 

“ I have never seen him like that be- 
fore,” murmured the girl at length. “ I 
did not know that men were ever like 
that. It was . . . rather terrible . . .” 

“ My poor child,” whispered Mrs. Wylie. 
“ I ought never to have left you here alone. 


J 3 2 


Suspense 

We might have guessed that that man 
Huston would be home soon. Did he 
hurt you, Brenda ? ” 

“ No ; he frightened me a little, that 
was all.” 

“ I am very glad you had Theo ! ” Mrs. 
Wylie purposely turned away as she said 
these words. 

Brenda sipped her tea, and made no 
reply. 

It had been twilight when Mrs. Wylie 
returned home, and now it was almost 
dark. The two ladies sat in the warm 
firelight, with their feet upon the fender. 
Tea laid aside, they continued sitting 
there while the flames leapt and fell again, 
glowing on their thoughtful faces, gleam- 
ing on the simple jewellery at their throats. 
From the restless streets came a dull, con- 
tinuous roar as of the sea. 

Mrs. Wylie it was who moved at last, 
rising with characteristic determination, as 
if the pastime of thought were a vice not 
wisely encouraged. She stood before 
Brenda in her widow’s weeds, looking 


Trist Acts 


*33 

down through the dim light with a faint 
smile. 

“ Come,” she said ; “ we must get ready 
for dinner. Remember that Mrs. Hicks 
is going to call for you at eight o’clock to 
take you to that Artists’ Guild soiree. I 
should put on a white dress if I were you, 
and violets. The gifted William Hicks, 
whom we met in the Park this afternoon, 
asked what flowers he should bring, and 
I suggested violets.” 

Brenda laughed suddenly, but her hilar- 
ity finished in a peculiar, abrupt way. 

“ Telle est la vie ! ” she murmured, as 
she rose obediently. “ What a labour this 
enjoyment sometimes is !” 


1 34 - 


Suspense 


CHAPTER XI 

THE SPORT OF FATE 

HE evening after Alice Huston’s 



JL flight from London, Trist suddenly 
determined to see Captain Huston him- 
self. This was a matter to be settled 
between men. 

He called a hansom, and drove to the 
club of which the books showed a sub- 
scription as due from Captain Huston. 
In return for this privilege its doors 
were still thrown open to the disgraced 
soldier. Careful inquiries at the door 
elicited the information that Huston had 
been there. 

“He was taken ... he went away with 
a friend a good half-hour ago, sir,” the 
porter added with a curious smile. 

The smile did not escape the ques- 
tioner’s glance, and, in consequence of it, 


The Sport of Fate 135 

Trist inquired for another friend, who took 
him to the smoking-room. 

The information he gathered from 
friends there was not of an encouraging 
nature. One youth, with downy lip and 
weak, dissipated eyes, volunteered the 
statement that Huston had gone home to 
his diggings as tight as a drum. This 
news was apparently of an hilarious drift, 
because the speaker finished with a roar 
of throaty laughter. An older man looked 
up over his evening paper, and nodded a 
grave acquiescence in reply to Trist’s 
raised eyebrows. 

“ Does anybody know his address ? ” 
inquired the correspondent. 

Nobody did. 

Upon inquiry at the door, Trist made 
the discovery that the porter had for- 
tunately been asked to give the direction 
to the driver of the cab in which Huston 
had been taken away. The address was 
one hardly known to the war-corre- 
spondent — a small street, leading out of 
another small street, near the Strand. 


136 Suspense 

In his quiet way he suddenly deter- 
mined to follow Huston. He lighted a 
cigar at the spirit-lamp affixed to the door- 
post, and then called a cab. 

“ I am not,” he reflected with some 
truth as he descended the steps, “ I am 
not an imaginative person, nor very 
highly strung ; but ... I feel . . . some- 
how ... as if something were going 
to happen.” 

There was a considerable delay in the 
Strand, where the traffic was much con- 
gested owing to the out-pouring theatres. 
A fog was hovering round the lamps 
already, and would soon envelop every- 
thing. The first keen frost of the season 
was at hand, with its usual disastrous 
effects to London lungs. Amidst the con- 
fusion, the roar of traffic, the deafening 
shouts of drivers, policemen, and runners 
with latest editions of evening papers, 
Trist sat forward, with his arms upon the 
closed door of the hansom, and enjoyed 
his cigar. All this rush of life and con- 
fusion of humanity thrilled him. He 


The Sport of Fate 137 

almost felt as if he were at work again 
making his way to the front through the 
wild melee of a disorganized and retreat- 
ing army; cavalry and infantry, baggage 
and artillery, all hopelessly intermingled. 
As he progressed he noted with admira- 
tion the cool skill of the policemen, each 
man alone acting on his own responsi- 
bility, and yet connected by the invisible 
links of discipline. 

At length the driver escaped into a 
narrow street, and, turning sharply to the 
right, drew up before a tall narrow house, 
bearing, on a dingy lamp above the door, 
the legend “ No. 32, Private Hotel.” A 
hopeless waiter, with shuffling shoes and a 
shirt-front of uncertain antecedents, an- 
swered the summons of a melancholy bell, 
which seemed to tinkle under strong pro- 
test, and as briefly as possible. 

“Captain Huston living here?” in- 
quired Trist. 

“ Yess’r. Er you the doctor ? ” 

The war-correspondent hesitated for a 
moment. Then he stepped into the nar- 
row hall. 


138 


Suspense 

“ Yes,” he said. 

“ ’E ’s got it bad this time, sir,” volun- 
teered the waiter, with melancholy effusion. 

Trist nodded his head shortly, and laid 
aside his hat. 

“ Take me to his room, please,” he said. 

The waiter shuffled on in front, and 
the young fellow followed him up the 
dingy stairs, walking lightly where the 
polished knots of pinewood peeped through 
the clammy oilcloth. 

We will let Theodore Trist enter that 
room alone. His walk in life has not 
been in the flowery part of the garden, 
but through the rougher growths, where 
good is sometimes hidden beneath a hid- 
eous exterior, and he knew already how 
slight a division there is between man and 
brute . Any battle-field would have taught 
him that. 

The doctor came, and stayed longer 
than he could conscientiously spare out 
of his busy life. It was half-past one 
o'clock in the morning before he went 
away, leaving Trist alone with Huston, to 


The Sport of Fate 139 

whom sleep had come at last. Before 
leaving he promised, however, to send an 
experienced nurse. 

The war-correspondent sat in a deep 
leather-covered arm-chair before the smoul- 
dering fire, contemplating his own shoes. 
A man of many resources, he had found 
himself in many strange situations during 
his short thirty years. He had made the 
best of more than one awkward dilemma 
by going straight ahead in a patient, 
steady way. He listened to the stertorous 
breathing of the sick man, and never 
thought of his own fatigue. There was 
no suggestion of complaint in his mind 
that his evening of pleasure should have 
had such an unpleasant finish. He did 
not even look at his own dress-clothes 
contrasting with the dingy surroundings, 
and appreciate the dramatic force of it all 
as Hicks might have done. It was merely 
an incident in his life, another opportunity 
to exercise for his own satisfaction that 
power of adaptability to environment which 
was in reality his chief aid to success in 


1 40 Suspense 

the peculiar surroundings of his varied 
life. 

The nurse could scarcely be expected 
for half an hour or so, and there was 
nothing else to do but keep faithfully the 
watch that was his in the meantime. It 
was rather strange that Trist should have 
saved twice within a month the worthless 
life of this man who had done his best 
to throw it away. As has already been 
stated, this student of Death had his own 
views upon the worth of human life — a 
semi-Oriental philosophy which would not 
bear setting forth here in black and white 
to sensitive Western minds. There is no 
doubt that familiarity with death breeds 
a contempt for life. Doctors and soldiers 
have a different view of human life from 
that held by the rest of mankind; but 
there is something in us which is stronger 
than the strongest views — namely, the 
instinct of preserving life. Theodore Trist 
knew that the miserable existence to which 
was attached the name Alfred Huston 
was in every way valueless. To its pos- 


The Sport of Fate 141 

sessor it was a source of wretchedness, a 
constant struggle against the over-power- 
ing odds of evil. To others his death 
would be a mercy. He knew this ; he 
valued his life lightly — and yet he staved 
off this death twice. 

As he sat and thought over these things, 
the fire-light flickered rosily upon his face ; 
it gleamed in his womanly eyes, glowed 
upon his broad high forehead. He was 
quite absorbed in his reflections, and never 
glanced towards the bed which was within 
the deep crimson shadow. He judged 
from the heavy respiration that Huston 
was asleep ; in this, however, he was mis- 
taken. The ex-soldier lay on his back, 
but his face was turned towards the fire, 
and his bloodshot eyes were wide open. 
His lips moved restlessly, but no sound 
came from them beyond the strong in- 
drawing of the sodden air. His wavering 
glance wandered from Trist’s head to his 
feet, restless and full of an insatiable hatred. 
Upon the dirty white coverlet his fingers 
moved convulsively, as if clutching and 
losing hold of something by turns. 


142 


Suspense 

It was a terrible picture, and one that 
could not fail to arouse in thoughtful 
minds a hopeless sense of despair. No 
one could look on it and say that human 
life is a success. 

Presently there was a soft knock at 
the front-door, and Trist rose from his 
chair. His watch was over; the hospital 
nurse had arrived, with her soft eyes, her 
quick, fearless fingers. As he left the 
room, Trist turned and glanced towards 
the bed. Huston lay there with closed 
eyes, unnaturally still. 

Then the war-correspondent left the 
room on tiptoe. No sooner had the door 
closed than the sick man’s eyes opened. 
There was a peculiar shifty light in the 
expanded pupils, and the man’s horrible 
lips moved continuously. He sat up in 
bed. 

“ Ah ! ” he mumbled thickly ; “ I know 
him. That’s the man . . . that’s the 
man who’s in love with my wife.” 

The fire rose and fell with merry 
crackle — for Trist had drawn the coals 


H3 


The Sport of Fate 

together noiselessly before leaving the 
room — and in the semi-darkness a strange 
unsteady form moved to and fro. 

“ I know him,” mumbled the horrible 
voice, “ and ...I’m going to shoot 
him.” 

There was a slight sound as if a 
drawer were being searched in a table 
or piece of furniture which was not 
quite firm upon its base, and a moment 
later the door was opened without noise. 
In the passage a single jet of gas burnt 
mournfully, and threw a flood of light 
through the open doorway. 

Upon the threshold stood Huston, 
quaking and swaying from side to side. 
In his trembling fingers he held a large 
Colt’s revolver of the cavalry pattern. 
The tips of the conical bullets peeped 
from the chambers threateningly. His 
clumsy hands were fumbling with the 
hammer, which was stiff and deeply 
sunk within the lock ; the light was 
bad. He raised the pistol closer to his 
swimming eyes, and the barrel, gleaming 


1 44 Suspense 

blue and brown alternately, wavered in 
the air. 

“ D — n the thing ! ” he muttered 
hoarsely. 

The next instant there was a terrific 
report through the silent house. 

# * # # 

A moment later Trist and the nurse 
were at the head of the stairs ; they had 
raced up side by side. The woman seized 
a worn sheepskin mat that lay at the 
door of an empty bedroom, and, drawing 
her skirts aside, knelt down and raised 
the mutilated face. 

“ Don’t let it run on the floor,” she 
gasped. 

They were both old hands and callous 
enough to be very quick. By the time 
that the startled household was aroused, 
the dead man (for the great bullet had 
passed right through his brain) was laid 
upon his bed, and Trist had already gone 
for the doctor. 

“No one must go in,” said the nurse, 
standing upon the threshold and barring 


The Sport of Fate 145 

the way. “ He is dead. There is no- 
thing to be done. Wait until the doctor 
comes.” 

Presently Trist returned, bringing with 
him the surgeon and a police-inspector. 
They all went into the room together 
and closed the door. Trist turned up the 
gas and watched the movements of the 
surgeon, who was already at the bedside. 

“ Where is the bullet ? ” asked the in- 
spector. 

“In the woodwork of the door,” an- 
swered Trist. 

The doctor left the bedside and came 
into the middle of the room, standing 
upon the hearthrug with his back to- 
wards the fire. 

“ I should be of opinion,” he said, “ that 
it was an accident.” 

The inspector nodded his head, and 
looked from the nurse to Trist. 

“ Does anybody,” he asked, “ know who 
he is, or anything about him?” 

“ I know who he is and all about him,” 
answered the war-correspondent. 


1 46 Suspense 

Note-book in hand, the inspector 
glanced keenly at the speaker. 

“ And . . . who are . . . you ? ” he 
asked, writing. 

“ Theodore Trist.” 

“ Ah ! ” murmured the doctor. 

The inspector drew himself up and con- 
tinued writing. 

“ Do you know, sir, what he was doing 
with the pistol ? Had he any intention 
of using it upon himself or upon any 
other?" 

Trist looked at his questioner calmly. 

“ I do not know," he answered. 


Breaking It 


J 4 7 


CHAPTER XII 

BREAKING IT 

L IKE one in a dream Theodore Trist 
passed out into the narrow street 
somewhat later. It was nearly three 
o’clock in the morning. When he 
reached his quiet rooms, he was almost 
startled at the sight of his own dress- 
clothes, spotless shirt-front, and unobtru- 
sive flower. He was out early next 
morning and rang Mrs. Wylie’s bell at 
nine o’clock. The lady of the house 
was not down yet, but he found Brenda 
in the breakfast- room. 

“Surely,” she said, “something must 
have happened to bring you here so 
early.” 

He smiled, and said nothing. 

Brenda moved one or two things upon 
the breakfast-table — things which in no 
way required moving. For the first time 


1 48 Suspense 

in her life she was beginning to feel ill at 
ease with this man. For the first time 
she dreaded vaguely to hear him speak, 
because she was not sure that he was at 
ease himself. 

At last he began, and there was a 
strained thrill in his voice as if it were 
an effort to open his lips. 

“ It has been my . . . fate . . . Brenda, 
to be with you or near you during most of 
the incidents in your life . . here he 
paused. 

“Yes,” she murmured unsteadily. 

“ I have/’ he continued, “ perhaps, been 
of some small use to you. I have 
been happy enough at times to tell you 
good news, and . . . and once or twice 
I have been the messenger of evil. . . . 
Now . . .” 

“ Now,” interrupted Brenda suddenly, 
as she came towards him, for a light had 
broken upon her — “ now you have bad 
news, Theo? Surely you are not afraid 
of telling it to me ! ” 

“ I don’t exactly know/’ he answered 


Breaking It 149 

slowly, “ whether it is good news or bad. 
Huston is dead ! ” 

She had continued smiling into his 
eyes until the last words were spoken, 
then suddenly she turned her face away. 
He watched the colour fade from her 
cheek, slowly sinking downward until her 
throat was like marble. After a moment 
she turned again and looked keenly at 
him with wondering, horror-struck eyes. 

“ Then,” she murmured monotonously, 
“ Alice is ... a widow.” 

It was a strange thing to say, and she 
had no definite conception of the train 
of thought prompting the remark. He 
looked at her in a curious, puzzled way, 
like a man who is near a truth, but fears 
to prove his proximity. 

“ Does she know ? ” she asked suddenly, 
rousing herself to the necessity of prompt 
action. 

“No. I have not your aunt’s address 
in Cheltenham.” 

Brenda looked at the clock upon the 
mantelpiece, a reliable mechanism, which 


150 Suspense 

kept remarkable time considering its femi- 
nine environments. 

“ Mrs. Wylie will be here in a moment ; 
we will then consider about the telegram. 
In the meantime . . . tell me when it 
happened, and how ? ” 

“ It happened at two o’clock this morn- 
ing . . . suddenly.” 

Brenda looked up at the last word, 
although it was spoken quite gently. 

“Suddenly . . .?” 

“ Yes. It . . . he shot himself with a 
revolver ... by accident!” 

The man’s gentle inscrutable eyes fell 
before Brenda’s gaze. He moved un- 
easily, and turned away, apparently much 
interested in the ornaments upon the 
mantelpiece. 

“ Were you present at the time ? ” 

“ No. I was downstairs. He was in 
his bedroom.” 

“ Tell me,” said the girl mechanically, 
“ what was he doing with the revolver ? ” 

Trist turned slowly and faced her. 
There was no hesitation in his glance 


Breaking It 151 

now ; his eyes looked straight into hers 
with a deliberate calm meaning. Then 
he shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Who knows ? ” he murmured, still 
watching her face. 

There flitted across his features the 
mere ghost of a deprecating smile, which 
was answered somewhat wanly by her. 
Women never laugh at danger as men do. 
They are indifferent to it, or they dread it 
undisguisedly, but they do not at any time 
despise it. 

When at length Brenda turned away 
she pressed her lips together as if to 
moisten them, and there was a convulsive 
movement in her throat. They under- 
stood each other thoroughly. 

“ There will, of course,” said Trist 
presently, “ be an inquest. It is, however, 
quite clear that, being left for a moment 
alone, he rose from his bed in a fit of 
temporary insanity, and having possessed 
himself of a revolver (possibly for suicidal 
purposes), he shot himself by accident.” 
Brenda had crossed the room to the 


1 5 2 Suspense 

window, where she stood with her back 
towards her companion. 

“ Yes ! ” she murmured absently. 

She was swaying a little from side to 
side, and her face was raised in an un- 
natural way. Trist stood upon the 
hearthrug with his elbow resting on the 
mantelpiece. He was watching her at- 
tentively. 

“ I have/’ he said somewhat hastily, as 
if it were an afterthought, “ some influ- 
ence with the newspapers.” 

Of this she took no notice. It would 
appear that she had not heard his voice. 
Then Trist moved restlessly. After a 
moment’s hesitation he lifted his arm from 
the mantelpiece with the apparent inten- 
tion of going towards her. He even 
made two or three steps in that direction 
— steps that were inaudible, for his tread 
was singularly light. Then the door 
opened, and Mrs. Wylie came into the 
room. 

“ Theo ! ” said the lady, with rather less 
surprise than might have been expected. 


Breaking It 153 

In a moment she had perceived that 
there was something wrong. The very 
atmosphere of the room was tense. These 
two people had either been quarrelling or 
making love. Of that Mrs. Wylie was 
certain. Her entrance had perhaps been 
malapropos ; but she could not go back 
now. Moreover, she was the sort of wo- 
man who never errs in retreating. Her 
method of fighting the world was from a 
strong position calmly held, or by a steady 
sure advance. 

“ Good-morning, Theo ! ” she said, with 
that deliberate cheeriness which is the 
deepest diplomacy. “ This is an early 
visit. Have you come to discover the 
laziness of the land ? ” 

“ No,” answered Theo simply. 

Then he turned and looked towards 
Brenda in a way which plainly said that 
she was expected to come forward into 
the breach he had effected. 

Brenda came. Her face was not so 
grave as Trist’s, but her lips were 
colourless. 


*54 


Suspense 

“ Theo has come,” she said, “ with bad 
news. We must telegraph to Alice at 
once. Alfred Huston had ... an acci- 
dent last night.” 

“What?” inquired Mrs. Wylie, turning 
to Trist. 

“ He is dead — he shot himself by acci- 
dent,” replied the war correspondent. 

Mrs. Wylie stood for some moments 
in her comfortable, placid way, rubbing 
one smooth hand over the other. She 
did not appear to be looking anywhere 
in particular, but in reality no movement 
of Brenda’s, however slight, escaped her 
notice. 

“ And now,” she said, after a weary little 
sigh, “ I suppose she will discover how 
much she loved him all along. . . .” 

Trist made a little movement, but the 
widow turned her calm gaze towards him, 
and spoke on, with a certain emphasis: 

“ Alice has in reality always loved 
Alfred Huston. This little misunder- 
standing would never have arisen had 
there not been love on both sides. I 


Breaking It 155 

have known it all along. You can trust 
an old woman on such matters. What a 
sad ending to it all.” 

“Yes,” assented Theo meekly; “it is 
very sad.” 

Brenda had turned away. She was 
standing at the window in her favourite 
attitude there — with her arms out- 
stretched, her fingers resting on the broad 
window-sill among the ornamental fern- 
baskets and flower-pots. 

Mrs. Wylie walked to the fireplace. 

“ Let me think,” she said, half to her- 
self, “ what must be done.” 

She knew that Trist was watching her, 
waiting for his instructions in his emotion- 
less, almost indifferent, way. If it were 
not for a certain moral laziness in the 
male temperament, women would be able 
to do very little with men. Then the 
widow met his gaze. She made a 
scarcely perceptible movement towards the 
door with her eyelids. With a slight nod 
he signified his comprehension of the 
signal. 


156 Suspense 

“ I must,” he said, “ go back now to 
... to Huston’s rooms. Will you com- 
municate with Alice ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Wylie simply. 

Without further explanation he went 
towards the door, glancing at Brenda as 
he passed. Mrs. Wylie followed him. 

“ We are better without you just now,” 
she whispered in the passage. “Write 
me full particulars, and wait to hear from 
me before you come back.” 


A Lesson 


1 57 


CHAPTER XIII 

A LESSON 

I N Suffolk Mansions the absence of 
Alice Huston left a less perceptible 
vacuum than that lady would have imag- 
ined. Mrs. Wylie was intensely relieved 
that the young widow had, so to speak, 
struck out a line of her own — wherever 
that line might tend to lead her. Brenda 
was less philosophical. She tried to per- 
suade herself that her sister’s presence 
had been a pleasure, and, like all pleasures 
withdrawn, had left a blank behind it. 
But the pretence was at its best a sorry 
one. It is a lamentable fact that propin- 
quity is the most powerful factor in human 
loves, hatreds, and friendships. The best 
of friends, the most affectionate sisters, 
cannot live apart for a few years without 
fostering the growth of an intangible, silent 
barrier which forces its way up between 


158 Suspense 

them, and which we lightly call a lack of 
mutual interest. What is love but “ mu- 
tual interest ? ” 

Brenda, who was herself the soul of 
loyalty, stood mentally aghast over the 
ruins of her great unselfish love. She 
imagined it dead, but this was not the 
case. The two women had drifted apart 
upon the broad waters of life. 

In the meantime Mrs. Wylie was watch- 
ing events. This good lady was an opti- 
mist. She was one of those brave persons 
who really in their hearts believe that 
human life is worth living for its own 
sake. She actually had the effrontery to 
maintain that happiness is attainable. 
There are some women like this in the 
world. They are not what is called in- 
tellectual — they write no books, speak 
no speeches, and propound no theories — 
but would to God there were more of 
them ! 

The daily life of these two ladies soon 
assumed its normal routine. Brenda 
studied political economy, Shakespeare, 


A Lesson 


*59 

and the latest biography by turns in her 
unproductive, resultless way. Her mind 
craved for food and refused nothing ; 
while, on the other hand, it possessed no 
decided tastes. Before January had run 
out its days she heard from Alice, who 
had moved southwards to Monte Carlo 
with her friends the Martyns. 

One afternoon in February Brenda was 
sitting alone in the drawing-room in Suf- 
folk Mansions when a visitor arrived. It 
was no other than William Hicks. His 
entree was executed with the usual fault- 
less grace and savoir-faire . He carried 
a soft hat, for it was foggy, and his long 
black cloak was thrown carelessly back 
to the full advantage of a broad astrakhan 
collar. 

This was the first visit he had paid 
since the death of Captain Huston. With 
this fact in view William Hicks smiled in 
a sympathetic way as he advanced with 
outstretched hand, but said no word. 
They shook hands gravely, and Brenda 
resumed her seat. 


160 Suspense 

“ Mrs. Wylie has just gone to your 
mother’s,” she said, in some surprise. 

Hicks laid aside his hat, and slowly 
drew off his slate-coloured gloves. The 
action was just a trifle stagy. He might 
well have been the hero of a play about 
to begin a difficult scene. 

“Yes,” he answered meaningly; “I 
know.” 

Brenda turned her head, and looked at 
him in silence. Her attitude was hardly 
one of surprise, and yet it betrayed her 
knowledge of his possible meaning. Alto- 
gether it was scarcely sympathetic. 

Hicks allowed her a few moments in 
which to make some sort of reply or 
inquiry as to his meaning, but she failed 
to take the cue. 

“ I found out by accident,” he con- 
tinued, “that Mrs. Wylie was upstairs 
with my mother, and had just arrived. 
It struck me that you might be alone 
here — the opportunity was one which 
I have waited for — so I came.” 

Brendas eyes were much steadier than 


A Lesson 1 6 1 

his, and he was forced to turn his gaze 
elsewhere. 

“It was very good of you,” she said 
with strange simplicity, “to think of my 
solitude.” 

Hicks caressed his matchless moustache 
complacently, although he was in reality 
not quite at ease. 

“ I wanted to speak to you,” he said, in 
a tone which deprecated the thought of a 
purely unselfish motive in the meritorious 
action. 

“ About . . . what ? ” inquired the girl, 
without enthusiasm. 

“ About myself — a dull topic, I am 
afraid.” 

It is to be hoped that William Hicks 
did not expect an indignant denial ; for 
such was not forthcoming. Brenda leant 
back in her chair in the manner of 
one composing herself to the considera- 
tion of a long and, probably, dull story. 
Her eyebrows were slightly raised, but 
she betrayed no signs of agitation or 
suspense. 


ii 


162 


Suspense 

Hicks slipped his cloak from his 
shoulders and rose. He stood on the 
hearthrug before her, looking down upon 
her as she reclined in the deep chair. 

“ Brenda,” he said, in a carefully modu- 
lated tone, “ I am only a poor painter — 
that is to say, I am not making much 
money out of art. I am, however, making 
a name which will no doubt be valuable 
some day. In the meantime I am for- 
tunately in a position to disregard the 
baser uses of art, and to seek her only for 
herself. I have a certain position already, 
and I am content even with it . I intend 
to do better — to make a greater name. 
And in that aim — you can help me! ” 

He was quite sincere, but the habit of 
posing was so strong upon him that the 
magnificence of his offer perhaps lost a 
little weight by the sense of study, of fore- 
thought, of preparation, as it were, in the 
manner of delivering it. 

There was a singular suggestion of 
Theodore Trist’s school of life in the man- 
ner in which Brenda looked up now and 


A Lesson 163 

spoke — a deliberate ignorance, almost, of 
the smoother social methods. 

“ Are you,” she inquired, “ asking me to 
be your wife ? ” 

Hicks stared at her vacantly. He was 
wondering what sequence of thought 
brought Theodore Trist into his mind at 
that moment. The question remained 
unanswered for some time. 

“ Yes,” he said at length weakly. 

In all his private rehearsals of this 
scene, he had never conceived the possi- 
bility of having to answer such a query. 
It was hard to do with dignity ; and for 
the first time, perhaps, in his life he was 
not quite content with his own method. 
After a momentary silence he recovered 
his usual aplomb. Brenda was, he argued, 
after all but a girl, and all girls are alike. 
Flattery reaches them every one, 

‘ I have,” he said eagerly, giving her no 
opportunity of interrupting him, “known 
many people — moved in many circles. 
I am not an inexperienced schoolboy, and 
therefore my conviction should carry some- 


164 Suspense 

weight with it. I am certain, Brenda, 
that I could find no more suitable wife if 
I searched all the world over. Your in- 
fluence upon my art cannot fail to be 
beneficial — you are eminently fitted to 
take a high place in the social world; 
such a place as my wife will find awaiting 
her. I have made no secret of my finan- 
cial position ; and as to my place in the 
art world of this century, you know as 
much as I could tell you.” 

He paused with a graceful wave of his 
white hand, and intimated his readiness 
to receive her answer. He even moved 
a step nearer to her, in order that he 
might with grace lean over her chair and 
take her hand when the proper moment 
arrived. 

There was no emotion on either side. 
Neither forgot for a second that they were 
children of a self-suppressing generation, 
which considers all outward warmth of joy 
or sorrow to be “ bad form.” William 
Hicks had delivered his words with fault- 
less intonation — perfect pitch — allowing 


A Lesson 


165 

himself (as an artist) a graceful gesture 
here and there. Brenda took her cue 
from him. 

“It is very good of you to make me 
such an advantageous offer,” she said, in 
an even and gentle voice, in which no 
ring of sarcasm could have been detected 
by much finer ears than those of William 
Hicks, which organs were partially para- 
lyzed by self-conceit ; “ but I am afraid I 
must refuse.” 

The artist was too much surprised to 
say anything at all. A refusal — to him ! 
One of the most popular men in London. 
A great, though unappreciated painter — 
a perfect dancer — a social lion. He had 
been run after, for most men are who take 
the trouble to be universally and impar- 
tially polite ; but he had never taken the 
trouble of investigating the desirability 
or otherwise of those who ran after him. 
He had not quite realized that there was 
not a woman among them worthy to but- 
ton Brenda’s glove. 

“Will you not,” he stammered, with 


1 66 Suspense 

blanched face, “ reconsider your ... de- 
termination ? ” 

The girl shook her head gravely. 

“ No ! ” she replied. “ There is not the 
slightest chance of my ever doing that, 
and I am very sorry if from anything I 
have said or done you have been led to 
believe that my answer could possibly 
have been otherwise.” 

To this Hicks made no direct reply. 
He could not with truth have accused 
her of the conduct she suggested. The 
fact merely was that he had not excepted 
Brenda from the rest of womankind, and 
it had always been his honest conviction 
that he had only to ask any woman in 
the world to be his wife to make that 
woman the happiest of her sex as well 
as the proudest. There is nothing ex- 
traordinary in this mild self-deception. 
We all practise it with marvellous success. 

Hicks had never been refused before, 
for the simple reason that he had never 
hitherto thought fit to place his heart at 
any maiden’s feet. 


A Lesson 167 

“ But why,” he pleaded, “ will you not 
marry me ? ’’ 

Her answer was ready. 

“ Because I do not love you.” 

“ But that will come,” he murmured. 
“ I will teach you to love me ! ” 

She raised her eyes to his face and 
looked calmly at him. Even in such a 
moment as this the habit of studying and 
dissecting human minds was not laid 
aside. It seemed as if she were ponder- 
ing over his words, not in connection with 
herself at all, but in a general sense. 
She was wondering, no doubt, if there 
were women who could be coerced into 
loving this man. As for herself she had 
no doubts whatever. William Hicks pos- 
sessed absolutely no influence over her, 
but she felt at that moment as if it were 
possible that a man could make her love 
him even against her will if he were pos- 
sessed of the necessary strength of pur- 
pose. In a vague, indefinite way she was 
realizing that woman is weaker than man 
— is, in fact, a weaker man, with smaller 


1 68 Suspense 

capabilities of joy and sorrow, of love, 
hatred, devotion, or remorse; and, in a 
way, William Hicks profited by this 
thought. She respected him — not indi- 
vidually, but generally — because he was 
a man, and because she felt that some 
women could look up to him and admire 
him for his mere manhood, if she herself 
was unable to do so because he fell short 
of her standard. 

In the meantime Hicks had realized 
the emptiness of his boast. From her 
calm glance he had read that her will 
was stronger than his own — that she did 
not love him, and never would. 

The artist dropped his argument at 
once. He turned away and walked to the 
window, where he stood with his back 
towards her, looking out into the dismal 
misty twilight. Thus the girl allowed 
him to stand for some time, and then she 
rose and went to his side. 

“ I am very sorry,” she said. 

She was beginning to think now that 
he really loved her in his way, although 


A Lesson 169 

by some curious oversight he had omitted 
to mention the fact 

He turned his head in her direction, 
and his hand caressed his moustache with 
its habitual grace. 

“ I don’t quite understand it,” he mur- 
mured. “ Of course ... it is a bitter 
disappointment to me. I have been mis- 
taken.” 

She made no attempt to alleviate his 
evident melancholy — expressed no regret 
that he should have been mistaken. The 
time for sympathy was past, and she 
allowed him to fight out his bitter fight 
alone. Presently he went towards the 
chair where he had thrown his cloak and 
hat. These he took up, and returned to 
her with his hand outstretched. 

“ Good-bye, Brenda ! ” he said, for once 
without affectation. 

“ Good-bye,” she replied simply, and 
long after William Hicks had left the 
room she stood there with her hands 
hanging down at either side. 


170 


Suspense 


CHAPTER XIV 
hicks’ secret 

W HEN Mrs. Wylie returned home 
about five o’clock she found the 
drawing-room still in darkness. The 
maid had offered to light the gas, but 
Brenda told her to leave it. In the pleas- 
ant glow of the firelight the widow found 
her young friend sitting in her favourite 
chair with interlocked fingers in her lap. 

Mrs. Wylie closed the door before she 
spoke. 

“ This is bad,” she said. 

“What is bad?” 

“ I believe,” replied Mrs. Wylie in her 
semi-serious, semi-cheerful way, “ that I 
have warned you already against the evil 
practice of sitting staring into the fire.” 

Brenda laughed softly, and met the 
kind gaze of the gray eyes that were 
searching her face. 


Hicks’ Secret 


171 

“ It has always seemed to me, she said, 
“ that your philosophy is wanting in 
courage. It is the philosophy of a moral 
coward. It is braver and better to think 
out all thoughts — good and bad, sad and 
gay — as they come.” 

Mrs. Wylie loosened her bonnet-strings, 
unhooked her sealskin jacket, and sat 
down. 

“ No,” she answered argumentatively. 
“ It is not the creed of a coward, no more 
than it is cowardly to avoid temptation. 
A practical man, however brave he may 
be, will do well to avoid temptation. A 
sensible woman will avoid thought. 

“ I was thinking,” replied the girl diplo- 
matically, “ of tea ! ” 

From the expression of the widow’s face 
it would seem that she accepted this state- 
ment with reservations. She made, how- 
ever, no remark. 

After a little pause she looked across at 
Brenda in a speculative way. 

“Willie Hicks,” she said, “has been 
here? ” 


1 72 


Suspense 

“Yes. How did you know? ” inquired 
Brenda rather sharply. 

“ Emma told me.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

“ Brenda,” said the widow in a softer 
tone, after a pause of some duration. 

“ Yes!” 

“ I have constructed a little fable for 
myself, in some part founded upon fact. 
Would you like to hear it? ” 

“Yes,” replied the girl with a slightly 
exaggerated moue of indifference ; “ tell 

me.” 

“ Shortly after I arrived at the Hicks’, 
Willie went out. I happened to know 
this, because I was near the window in 
the drawing-room and saw him. I also 
noticed that his gait was slightly furtive. 
I thought, ‘ That young man does not 
want me to know that he has gone out.’ 
On my way home I met him going in 
the contrary direction. He avoided see- 
ing me, and did it remarkably well, as 
might have been expected. But there 
was a change in his gait, and even in his 


Hicks’ Secret 


l 7 3 

attitude. The strange thought came into 
my head that he had been here to see you. 
Then I began to wonder what had caused 
the change I detected. It seemed as if 
William Hicks had passed through some 
experience — had received a lesson. The 
final flight of my imagination was this : 
that you, Brenda, had given him that 
lesson.” 

Mrs. Wylie ceased speaking and leant 
back comfortably. Brenda was sitting 
forward now with her two hands clasped 
around her knees. She was looking 
towards her companion, and her eyes 
glowed in the ruddy light. 

“ I think,” she said, “ we should respect 
his secret. Naturally he would prefer 
that we were silent.” 

“ We are neither of us talkative. . . . 
Then . . . then my fable was true ? ” 

Brenda nodded her head. 

“ I am glad,” murmured the widow after 
a short silence, “ that he has brought 
matters to an understanding at last. It 
is probable that he will turn out a fine 


1 74 Suspense 

fellow when he has found his level. He 
is finding it now. His walk was different 
as he returned home. All young men 
are objectionable until they have failed 
signally in something or other. Then 
they begin to settle down into manhood.” 

“ He misrepresents himself,” said Brenda 
gently. “ When he lays aside his artistic 
affectation he is very nice.” 

“ But,” added Mrs. Wylie with con- 
viction, “ he is not half good enough for 
you.” 

Brenda smiled a little wistfully and rose 
to preside at the tea-tray, which the maid 
brought in at that moment. 

And so William Hicks was tacitly laid 
aside. People who live together — hus- 
band and wife, brother and sister, woman 
and woman — soon learn the art of defer- 
ring a subject which can gain nothing 
by discussion. There are perforce many 
such topics in our daily life — subjects 
which are best ignored, explanations 
which are best withheld, details best 
suppressed. 


Hicks’ Secret 


J 75 


During their simple tea and the even- 
ing that followed there were other things 
to talk of, and it was only after dinner, 
when they were left alone with their work 
and their books, that Mrs. Wylie made 
reference to the afternoon’s proceedings. 

“ On my way back from the Hicks’,” she 
said conversationally, “ I met Sir Edward.” 

“Ah! Indeed! . . 

Brenda looked up from the heavy vol- 
ume on her lap and waited with some 
interest. Mrs. Wylie paused some time 
before continuing. She leant to one side 
and took up a large work-basket, in which 
she searched busily for something. 

“Yes,’* she murmured at length, with 
her face literally in the basket ; “ and 
. . . Theo is in St. Petersburg!” 

“ St. Petersburg ! ” repeated Brenda 
slowly. “ In the winter. I rather envy 
him!” 

“ I do not imagine,” said Mrs. Wylie, 
still occupied with the dishevelled con- 
tents of her work-basket, “ that he is there 
on pleasure.” 


1 7 6 Suspense 

Brenda laughed lightly. 

“ Theo,” she observed in a casual way 
“is not much given to pleasure in an un- 
diluted state.” 

“ I like a man who takes life and his 
life's work seriously.” 

“ So do I,” assented Brenda indifferently. 

She knew that Mrs. Wylie was study- 
ing her face with kindly keenness, and 
so she smiled in a friendly way at the 
fire, which seemed to dance and laugh in 
reply. 

“ Is it generally known that he is in 
St. Petersburg ? ” she asked with some 
interest. 

“Oh no! Sir Edward told me in con- 
fidence. He says that it does not matter 
much, but that he and Theo would prefer 
it not being talked about.” 

“ Why has he gone ? ” asked the girl. 

Mrs. Wylie laid aside the basket and 
looked across at her companion with a 
curious, baffled smile. 

“ I don’t know,” she answered. “ I had 
not the . . . the courage to ask.” 


Hicks’ Secret 


1 77 


Brenda returned to her book. 

“ I suppose,” she said presently, as she 
turned a page, “ that it means war.” 

The widow shrugged her shoulders. 

“ We must not get into the habit,” she 
suggested, “of taking it for granted that 
every action of Theo’s means that.” 

“He lives for war,” said the girl wearily 
as she bent over her book with decision. 

Mrs. Wylie worked on in silence. She 
had no desire to press the subject, and 
Brenda’s statement was undeniable. 

They now returned to their respective 
occupations, but Brenda knew that at 
times her companion’s eyes wandered 
from the work towards her own face. 
Mrs. Wylie was evidently thinking ac- 
tively — not passively, as was her wont. 
The result was not long in forthcoming. 

“ My dear,” she said energetically, “ I 
have been thinking. Let us go down to 
Wyl’s Hall.” 

Brenda pondered for a few seconds 
before replying. It was the first time 
that there had been any mention of the 


12 


178 Suspense 

old Suffolk house since its master’s sud- 
den death. Mrs. Wylie had never crossed 
the threshold of this, the birthplace of 
many Wylies (all good sailors), since she 
returned in the Hermione to Wyvenwich 
a childless widow. All this Brenda knew, 
and consequently attached some impor- 
tance to the suggestion. During the last 
six months they had lived on in an un- 
settled way from day to day. Both had, 
perhaps, been a little restless. There was 
a want of homeliness about the cham- 
bers in Suffolk Mansions; not so much, 
perhaps, in the rooms themselves as in 
the stairs, the common door with its 
civil porter, and the general air of joint 
proprietorship. What we call vaguely 
“ home ” is nothing but a combination 
of small things with their individual asso- 
ciations. The milkman with his familiar 
cry, the well-known bang of the front 
door, the creaking of the wooden stairs; 
such trifles as these make up our home, 
form the frame in which our life is placed, 
and each little change is noted. 


Hicks’ Secret 


179 

To women these small associations are, 
perhaps, dearer than they are to us men. 
No doubt they love to be known and 
greeted by their neighbours, rich or poor, 
while we are often indifferent. The want 
of human sympathy, of human interest 
and mutual aid is the most prominent 
feature in town life. Men live and die, 
rejoice and grieve, laugh and weep almost 
under the same roof, and never share 
their laughter or mingle their tears. 
Faces may grow familiar, but hearts re- 
main estranged, because perforce each 
man must fight for himself on the pave- 
ment, and there is no time to turn aside 
and lend a helping hand. 

Brenda did not lose sight of the possi- 
bility that Mrs. Wylie might be longing 
for the familiar faces and pleasant voices 
of the humble dwellers in Wyvenwich ; 
but the proposal to return to Wyl’s Hall 
was apparently unpremeditated, and there- 
fore the girl doubted its sincerity. 

“Not on my account?” she inquired 
doubtfully, without looking up. 


180 Suspense 

“ No. On my own. I am longing for 
the old place, Brenda. This fog and 
gloom makes one think of the brightness 
of Wyvenwich and the sea, which is al- 
ways lovely in a frost. Let us go at once 
— to-morrow or the next day. The win- 
ter is by no means over yet, and London 
is detestable. Even if we are snowed up 
at Wyl’s Hall, it does not matter much, 
for it is always bright and cheery despite 
its loneliness. We will take plenty of 
books and work.” 

The girl made no further demur, and 
presently caught the infection of her com- 
panion’s cheerful enthusiasm. Mrs. Wylie 
possessed the pleasant art of making life 
a comfortable thing under most circum- 
stances, and for such as her a sudden 
move has no fears. While Trist adapted 
himself to circumstances, Mrs. Wylie 
seemed to adapt circumstances to herself, 
which is, perhaps, the more difficult art. 

The good lady seemed somewhat re- 
lieved when the move was finally decided 
upon and arranged ; nevertheless, there 


Hicks’ Secret 1 8 1 

was a look of anxiety on her round face 
when she sought her room that night. 

“ I wish,” she observed to her own re- 
flection in the looking-glass, “ that I knew 
what to do. I must be a terrible coward. 
It would be so very easy to ask Brenda 
outright . . . though ... I know what 
the answer would be . . . poor child ! 
And I might just as well have spoken out 
boldly when I went to see him that night. 
It is a difficult predicament, because — 
they are both so strong ! ” 


Suspense 


182 


CHAPTER XV 
wyl’s hall 

I T does not fall to the lot of many trav- 
ellers by sea to plough through the 
yellow broken waters of the German Ocean 
where the coast of Suffolk lies low and 
fertile. Thus it happens that these shores 
are little visited, and never overrun by the 
cheap tourist. Upon this bleak, shingly 
shore there are little villages and small 
ancient towns quite unknown to the Au- 
gust holiday-seeker, who prefers crowding 
down to the south coast. Wyl’s Hall lies 
far away from railway and the noise of 
haste. 

All through February and March the 
two ladies had lived happily here without 
longing for the busier life of London. 
The human mind is even more adaptable 
to circumstances than the body that 
carries it. Small interests soon take the 


Wyl’s Hall 183 

place of large, and quietude soon follows 
on excitement without any great mental 
change being necessary. 

At times Mrs. Wylie heard about Theo- 
dore Trist — usually a vague rumour that 
he was in London, or Paris, or Berlin. In 
his deliberate way he was building up for 
himself a great reputation in that inner 
diplomatic world which is a sealed cham- 
ber for prying journalism of the cheaper 
sort. Upon certain international subjects 
the newspaper he served was without rival, 
but the closest observer could not detect 
his pen or assign any statement to him. 
The secret remained inviolate between 
himself and his editor. The position of 
Theodore Trist was unique, and has not 
since been approached. His grasp of the 
great subject of war was extraordinary at 
this time of his life, when all his faculties 
were in full strength. From the lock of a 
Berdan rifle to the construction of a 
trench, from the strap of a knapsack to 
the details of a treaty, his knowledge was 
unrivalled. In diplomacy he could have 


184 Suspense 

made his mark had he so wished, but he 
contented himself with studying the art as 
a sailor learns astronomy — merely as a 
factor in his profession. In some coun- 
tries he was cordially hated — notably in 
Germany, where the peculiar circum- 
stances of his position were incomprehen- 
sible. The Teutonic mind cannot grasp 
certain motives which solely depend upon 
a sense of honour or find birth in a scru- 
pulous uprightness. 

That which we in our trammelled 
smallness call “ scruple ” they possess not; 
and to that cause must be assigned the 
reason that the great Teutonic nation 
never understood Theodore Trist. His 
position was to them an anomaly. They 
could not realize that he was capable of 
serving two nations — France and Eng- 
land — honestly at the same time, and so 
they distrusted him. He was hated be- 
cause he had dared to criticise a military 
policy which was modestly considered in 
Berlin as the ablest yet conceived since 
armies first ruled the world. Added to 


Wyl’s Hall 185 

this there was the rankling sore of an 
unforgotten story, told bluffly and with 
scathing sarcasm in a French and English 
newspaper simultaneously — the story of a 
dastardly attempt to extract information 
from a faithful Alsatian peasant woman 
by means of what in barbarous ages we 
would have denominated infamous torture. 

Once Mrs. Wylie heard directly from 
Theodore Trist — a short note, sent with 
some quaint old jewellery he had brought 
back from the Slavonski Bazar in Mos- 
cow for herself and Brenda. 

March was drawing to a close, and the 
low Suffolk lands were already green by 
reason of their dampness, when a second 
communication arrived at Wyl’s Hall from 
the busy correspondent. 

“ May I,” he asked tersely, “come down 
for a day or two to see you ? Please an- 
swer by telegraph.” 

The note came at breakfast-time, and 
a messenger was at once despatched to 
Wyvenwwich with a telegram. 

“ It is quite an age since we have seen 


1 86 Suspense 

Theo,” observed Mrs. Wylie pleasantly, as 
she wrote out the message. 

Brenda, who was occupied with her 
letters, acquiesced carelessly; but in a 
few moments she laid the communica- 
tions aside and took up the newspaper. 
With singular nonchalance she opened it 
and went towards the window. There 
was nothing very peculiar in this action, 
and yet the girl’s movements were in 
some slight and inexplicable way embar- 
rassed. It seemed almost as if she did 
not wish Mrs. Wylie to notice that she 
was looking at the newspaper. During 
breakfast there was a furtive anxiety visi- 
ble in the manner and voice of these 
deceitful women. Each attempted to re- 
joice openly over the advent of Theodore 
Trist, and at the same time carefully 
avoided seeking a reason for his unusual 
mode of procedure ; for Trist was a man 
who never invited himself. Indeed, his 
habit was one of apprehensive self-sup- 
pression ; except in the battle-field, he 
was nervously afraid of being de trop . 


Wyl’s Hall 187 

While the table was being cleared 
Brenda left the room on some small er- 
rand, and Mrs. Wylie literally pounced 
upon the newspaper the moment the door 
was closed. With practised hand and eye 
she sought the column containing foreign 
intelligence. Eagerly she scanned the 
closely-printed lines, but disappointment 
was the evident result. 

“ Not a word,” she reflected — “not a 
word. But perhaps that is all the worse. 
Theo is coming down here for some spe- 
cific reason, I am sure. Either to say 
good-bye or . . . or for something else. 
War — war — war ! I feel it in the air ! ” 

And the good lady stood there in the 
bow-window gazing through the rime- 
shaded panes away across the moor, over 
the green and mournful sea. Her clever 
gray eyes were half-closed, owing to a 
peculiar contraction of the eyelids — a 
little habit she indulged in when thinking 
in her brave cheery way of those things, 
which women have greater leisure to 
meditate over than men — of the happi- 


1 8 8 


Suspense 

ness and the great joy we seem ever about 
to grasp, and which with melancholy in- 
variability slips through our earthly fin- 
gers, fades from our earthly eyes. 

Unconsciously she was looking away 
towards the east, to those mysterious lands, 
whence so many chapters of the world’s 
history have been drawn. 


Diplomacy 


189 


CHAPTER XVI 

DIPLOMACY 

I T happened that there were some warm 
balmy days towards the end of M*arch, 
and on one of these Theodore Trist ar- 
rived at Wyvenwich. Mrs. Wylie and 
Brenda were on the little platform to 
meet him, and the elder lady, in her 
practical way, noted the lightness of his 
baggage and drew her own conclusions. 

They walked to Wyl’s Hall through 
the High Street of the little town, down 
towards the sea, up a steep path on the 
cliff, and finally across the moor. All 
green things were budding, tender shoots 
and bold weeds alike. Overhead the 
larks were singing in glad chorus. Side 
by side the three friends walked, and 
talked of . . . the weather. 

“Spring is upon us again,” Mrs. Wylie 
had said during the first pause. 


1 90 Suspense 

“Yes,” answered Trist; “this weather 
always makes me restless.” 

“ More so than usual ? ” inquired Brenda. 

Trist looked at her sideways. 

“Yes,” he murmured, “more so than 
usual. I suppose a new fund of energy 
creeps into my somnolent being.” 

“ Do you really believe,” inquired Mrs. 
Wylie, with great interest, “ that the 
weather has so much effect upon one 
as that ? ” 

“ I am sure of it. There is no denying 
the fact that in the springtime, when all 
things are beginning to grow, men grow 
energetic. If they be working, they work 
harder; fighting, fight harder; playing, 
play harder. The majority of events 
happen in the first six months of the 
year.” 

“So the unexpected may be expected 
before July,” suggested Mrs. Wylie 
quietly. 

“ That may be expected at all times.” 

Thus they talked on in vague com- 
monplaces, not entirely devoid of a 


Diplomacy 191 

second meaning perhaps. Brenda scarcely 
joined in the conversation. It was enough 
for her to listen to these two strangely 
assorted friends, who seemed to her ana- 
lytical mind to be rather different in each 
other’s company than they were before 
the rest of the world. She never quite 
lost her youthful habit of studying human 
minds — picking them to pieces, dissect- 
ing them, assigning motives, seeking rea- 
sons — and her belief in the influence of 
one will over another (even at a distance) 
was singularly strong. She was pleased 
to consider that* Theodore Trist and 
Mrs. Wylie possessed some hidden sym- 
pathies in common beyond the mere ties 
of friendship ; and it is probable that 
she gained some instruction and perhaps 
a little benefit in watching their inter- 
course. Certain it is that each in turn 
spoke to the other as he or she spoke 
to no one else. Each possessed a power 
of bringing out certain qualities in the 
other, which power was unique. And 
so Brenda, who was at no time a talka- 


192 


Suspense 

tive woman, listened in silence as they 
walked home to Wyl’s Hall across the 
deserted moor. 

When they had reached the house the 
girl went upstairs to remove her hat and 
jacket, leaving her two companions to- 
gether in the library. This was a good- 
sized room, with a broad old-fashioned 
bow-window, of which even the panes 
of glass were curved, while all round it 
there was a low window-seat. In the 
broad fireplace some logs of driftwood 
burnt slowly and silently, with a steady 
glow of heat, as only driftwood burns. 

Trist went straight to the window and 
stood in the centre of it, with his strong 
lean hands hanging idly. His eyes were 
soft and meek and dreamy as ever, while 
his limbs seemed full of strength and 
energy. The old incongruity was still 
apparent. 

Mrs. Wylie followed him, and seated 
herself by the window at the end of the 
bow, so that the man’s profile was visible 
to her. Thus they remained for some 


Diplomacy 193 

seconds ; then he turned with grave de- 
liberation and met her steady gaze. 

“Well . . . ?” she inquired. 

“Well . . . ?” he reiterated. 

“ How long are you going to stay? ” 

“ Till Monday.” 

“ This being Friday . . 

He signified assent and turned away 
again. 

“ Why have you come ? ” asked Mrs. 
Wylie abruptly, after a short pause. 

This time he avoided meeting her eyes 
by the simple expedient of staring out of 
the window. 

“ I do not know . . .” he replied, with 
some hesitation. 

“ Yes . . . you do ! ” 

He wheeled round upon his heels and 
looked down at her with an aggravatingly 
gentle smile. 

“Yes, Theo, you do! Why have you 
come ? ” 

“ May I not be allowed,” he asked 
lip-htlv, “ a certain desire to see you and 
. ! . Brenda? ” 


13 


i 9 4 


Suspense 

“You may,” she replied; “but that is 
not the reason of your coming.” 

She settled herself more comfortably 
on the window-seat, laid aside her muff, 
loosened her jacket, and composed her- 
self to a long wait with a cheery deter- 
mination eminently characteristic. 

“ In the spring ...” he began, in a 
patient voice which seemed to contain 
the promise of a long story. 

“ The young man’s fancy . . contin- 
ued Mrs. Wylie. 

“Lightly turns,” he said gravely, tak- 
ing up the thread, “to thoughts of . . . 
war.” 

At the last word he lowered his voice 
suddenly, and turned upon her as if to 
see its effect. She merely raised her eye- 
brows and looked at him speculatively. 
At last she gave a little nod of the head, 
signifying comprehension. 

“Then you have come to say — good- 
bye ? ” 

Here her voice failed a little. With 
care she could have prevented such an 


Diplomacy 195 

occurrence ; but perhaps she spoke a trifle 
recklessly — perhaps she did not care to 
conceal the feeling which was betrayed 
by that passing break in her mellow sym- 
pathetic tones. When it was too late, she 
closed her lips with a small snap of de- 
termination, and looked up at him smiling 
defiantly. 

“ Not necessarily,” he replied coolly. 
“ It may mean that ; or, at least, it may 
mean that I am summoned away at such 
short notice that there will be no oppor- 
tunity of coming again. Personally, I 
should prefer it to be so. The pastime 
of saying good-bye may possess a certain 
sentimental value, but it is a weakness 
which is best avoided.” 

Mrs. Wylie continued to watch the 
young man’s face with speculative criti- 
cism. It is just possible that she sus- 
pected him of talking nonsense, as it 
were, against time or against himself. 

“ Is your information of a general de- 
scription, or have you certain advice that 
war is imminent ? ” 


196 Suspense 

Trist smiled almost apologetically as 
he replied, with caution : 

“ I have reason to believe that there will 
be a big war before the summer.” 

“ Turkey and Russia, of course? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“And you go with Turkey, I suppose?” 

“Yes.” 

“ The losing side again ? ” inquired 
Mrs. Wylie diplomatically. 

“ Probably ; but not without a good 
fight for it. It will not be such an easy 
matter as the Russians imagine.” 

“ Where shall you be ? ” asked the per- 
sistent lady. “At Constantinople or . . .” 

“At the front! ” said Trist. 

The widow turned aside and looked 
out of the window. Across the moor, 
on the edge of the cliff, a coast-guards- 
man was pacing backwards and forwards 
with a measured tread acquired at sea, 
and from the window they watched him 
in a mechanical, semi-interested way. 

“ Do you know,” said Mrs. Wylie at 
length, in a half-shamefaced way, “ I be- 


Diplomacy 197 

lieve I am beginning to lose my nerve. 
Is it a foretaste of approaching old age ? 
I really believe I am going to be anxious 
about you.” 

Her semi-bantering tone justified Trist’s 
easy laugh. He took it for granted that 
Mrs. Wylie was not speaking seriously. 

“You must not allow yourself,” he 
expostulated, “ to get into bad habits of 
that sort.” 

“ Still,” argued the widow in the same 
tone, “ I do not see why you should be 
free from the restraining and salutary 
feeling that there is some one waiting for 
you at home.” 

It was hard to tell whether Mrs. Wylie 
meant more than the mere words con- 
veyed or no. Trist seemed to hesitate 
before replying. 

“ I am never free from that — but it is 
not necessary ; my foolhardy days are 
over.” 

“ And this is to be the last time? ” said 
Mrs. Wylie, consoling herself. 

“ Yes. The last time ! ” 


198 Suspense 

There was a strange, hard ring in the 
wanderer’s tone as he echoed the fore- 
boding words and turned gravely away. 
The sound seemed to strike some sym- 
pathetic chord in the lady’s heart, for she, 
too, looked almost mournful. 

“ I would give a good deal to have you 
safe back again,” murmured Mrs. Wylie 
in an undertone. The remark was hardly 
addressed to him, and he allowed it to 
pass unnoticed. Presently, however, he 
turned and looked into her face with some 
anxiety depicted on his calm features. 
Then he took a step or two nearer to 
her. 

“ This will never do,” he said gravely, 
standing in front of her with his strong 
hands clenched. 

She gave rather a lame little laugh, and 
looked up with a deprecating glance. 

“ Theo, I am afraid I am not so pluckv 
as I used to be. My nerve is gone. I 
think I left it ... at Fjaerholm.” 

He made no reply, but merely stood 
by her in his silent manliness, and from 


Diplomacy 199 

his presence she somehow gathered com- 
fort, as women do. Although we be of 
coarser fibre, failing to grasp the hidden 
pathos of everyday life — the little trials, 
the petty sorrows ; failing often to divine 
the motives that grow out of a finer, truer, 
nobler nature than ours, and always fail- 
ing to appreciate the unselfishness of wo- 
man’s love — despite all these, our pres- 
ence is at times a comfort because of the 
greater strength that does or should lie 
within us. 

No reference had hitherto been made 
between Mrs. Wylie and Trist to the 
events attending the last voyage of the 
Hertnione. A year had not yet elapsed, 
and the Admiral’s name was still avoided. 
Trist was of a sympathetic nature, al- 
though he evinced some contempt for 
death itself, which was a mere matter of 
familiarity; and it was his creed that 
things and names which cause a pang of 
sorrow are best left in oblivion. Mrs. 
Wylie was outwardly little changed, but 
he knew that the wound was by no means 


200 Suspense 

healed, and he had, therefore, allowed all 
recollection of the Hermione s sorrowful 
voyage to die from his memory. No 
doubt the great healer Time would do 
for Mrs. Wylie what he has done for us all 
since the days of Adam — but it was too 
soon yet. In the annals of sorrow a year 
is no long period. It is a pity that the 
effect of joy is so short-lived, while sorrow 
holds its own so long. There are so 
many varieties of sorrow that by the time 
we have tasted most of them and have 
become accustomed to the flavour, life 
itself is at an end, and we have had no 
time to enjoy its pleasures by reason of 
the years spent in wrestling with woe. 

Theo Trist held his peace sympatheti- 
cally and yet without encouragement. 
Mrs. Wylie no doubt understood his mo- 
tive, for they possessed in common that 
desire of concealing the seamy side which 
Brenda had characterized as cowardly. In 
her courage she seemed to take a pride 
in facing untoward things — indeed, she 
sought them ; while these two, in their 


Diplomacy 201 

greater experience, slurred them over as a 
clever painter slurs over certain acces- 
sories in his picture, in order that the 
brighter objects may stand more firmly on 
the face of the canvass. 

“ Nevertheless,” he said more cheerily, 
returning to the original question, “you 
are the pluckiest woman I have ever met ! 
You must not give way to this habit of 
anxiety, for it is nothing but a habit — a 
sort of moral cowardice. It serves no 
purpose. An over-anxious man misses 
his opportunities by moving too soon ; an 
over-anxious woman has no peace in life, 
because she can do nothing but watch.” 

Mrs. Wylie laughed pleasantly. 

“No!” she exclaimed, with determina- 
tion. “ It is all right, Theo ; I will not 
give way to it. My anxiety is only anti- 
cipatory ; when the moment comes I am 
generally up to the mark.” 

With a brave smile she nodded to him 
and moved towards the door, carrying her 
gloves and muff. He followed in order to 
open the door, for he had some strange, 


202 


Suspense 

old-fashioned notions of politeness which 
promise to become fossilized before the 
end of the century. 

“ Will it be a long war ? ” she asked, 
before passing out of the room. 

He answered without deliberation, as if 
he had already pondered over the question 
at leisure with a decisive result. 

“ I think so. It will go on all through 
the summer and autumn. As things get 
worse, Turkey will probably pull herself 
together. It is a way she has. It may 
even continue actively right on into the 
winter. The Turks will be on the de- 
fensive, which suits them exactly. Put 
a Turk into a trench with a packet of 
cigarettes, a little food, a rifle, and a sack- 
ful of cartridges, and it will take a con- 
siderable number of Russians to get him 
out.” 

“ I hope it will not extend into the 
winter,” said Mrs. Wylie, as she left the 
room. 

“ So do I.” 

He closed the door and walked slowly 


Diplomacy 203 

back towards the bow-window. There he 
stood staring out with eyes that saw but 
understood not, for many minutes. 

“ I am not quite sure,” he muttered at 
last, “ that I have done a wise thing in 
coming to Wyl’s Hall ! ” 


204 


Suspense 


CHAPTER XVII 

GOOD-BYE ! 

I N the course of a few hours Theodore 
Trist was quite at home at Wyl’s 
Hall. These three people had lived to- 
gether before, and knew each other’s ways. 
Mrs. Wylie, the personification of com- 
fort — Theo Trist, possessing no real com- 
prehension of the word — Brenda, midway 
between them, with a youthful faculty for 
adapting herself to either. The narrow 
limits of a ship soon break down the 
smaller social barriers, and the memory of 
life on board the Hermione knitted the 
inmates of Wyl’s Hall in a close and 
pleasant familiarity. At times, indeed, the 
union of the three around the fireside or 
at table seemed to emphasize the absence 
of the fourth, to suggest the vacancy 
caused by the stillness of a pleasant voice, 
the absence of a fine old face. But this 


20 c ; 


Good-bye ! 

slight shadow was not unpleasant, because 
it had no great contrast to show it up. 
None of the three was hilarious, but there 
was a pleasant sociability, which for every- 
day use is superior to the most brilliant 
flashes of wit. 

Very soon the old, semi-serious style of 
conversation found place again. Brenda 
fell into her former habit of listening (too 
silently, perhaps) to Mrs. Wylie and Theo, 
accusing them at times of cynicism and 
worldliness. Old questions came to life 
again — unfinished discussions were re- 
newed. Everything seemed to suggest 
the Ilermione. 

Again and again Mrs. Wylie found her- 
self watching the two young people thus 
thrown together, and on each occasion 
she remembered how she had watched 
them before to no purpose. Since the 
pleasant summer days spent in the Heim- 
dalfjord many incidents had come with 
their petty influences, and yet these two 
were in no way altered towards each 
other. One great difference was ever be- 


206 Suspense 

fore her eyes, and yet she could not detect 
its result. Alice Huston was now a free 
woman, and if Trist loved her, there was 
no reason why he should not win her in 
the end ; indeed, there was great cause to 
suppose that the matter should be easy to 
him. And yet there was no change in 
his manner towards the girl who, in all 
human probability, was destined to be 
his sister-in-law. The old half-chivalrous, 
half-brotherly way of addressing her and 
listening to her reply was still noticeable ; 
and it puzzled the widow greatly. But 
Brenda seemed to take it as a matter of 
course. This man was different to all 
other men in her estimation ; it was only 
natural that his manner towards her 
should be unlike that of others. And 
now a subtle change took place in Mrs. 
Wylie’s mind. On board the Hermione 
she had been convinced that if any wo- 
man possessed an influence over Theo 
Trist, that woman was Alice Huston. 
(The widow was too experienced, too 
practical, too farsighted to attempt a 


20 7 


Good-bye ! 

definition of this fascination exercised by 
a woman of inferior intellect over a man 
infinitely her superior in every way.) 
Now she was equally sure that Trist was 
moved by no warmth of love towards the 
beautiful young widow who had so openly 
thrown herself in his path. 

One trifling alteration seemed to pre- 
sent itself occasionally to the good lady’s 
watchful eyes, and this was a well-hidden 
fear of being left alone together. Whether 
this emanated from Theo or Brenda it 
was impossible to say, but its presence 
was unmistakable, and, moreover, what- 
ever its origin may have been it was now 
mutual. At one time they had possessed 
a thousand topics of common interest, and 
found in each other’s conversation an un- 
failing pleasure. Now they both talked to 
her, using her almost as an intermediary. 

On the Saturday morning, while dress- 
ing, the widow meditated over these 
things, and in the afternoon she delib- 
erately sent her two guests out for a 
walk together. About three miles down 


2o8 


Suspense 

the coast, in the very centre of the marsh 
lying to the south of Mizzen Heath 
Moor, was a ruined lighthouse, long since 
superseded by a lightship riding on the 
newly-formed sandbank four miles off 
the shore. In this ruin lived an old 
marshman, in whose welfare Mrs. Wylie 
appeared suddenly to have taken a great 
interest. For him, accordingly, a parcel 
was made up, and the two young people 
were despatched immediately after lunch. 

Mention has already been made of 
Mrs. Wylie’s nervous abhorrence of any 
interference in what she was pleased to 
consider other people’s affairs. In this 
matter she had at last made up her 
mind to act, because she loved these two 
as her own children, and there was in 
her kindly heart a haunting fear that they 
were about to make a muddle of their 
lives. 

A slight haze lay over the land as the 
two young' people made their way across 
the moor towards the coastguard-path — 
a narrow footway forever changing its 


209 


Good-bye ! 

devious course before the encroaching 
sea. Before their eyes lay a vast plain, 
intersected here and there with water- 
course or sluice ; while away to the 
southward rose a blue barrier of distant 
hill. Inland, the meadows were green 
and lush ; while nearer to the sea the 
grass grew sparsely, and there were 
small plots of sand and shingle nourish- 
ing nought but unsightly thistles. 

Already the clouds were freeing them- 
selves from winter heaviness, and in their 
manifold combinations there was that 
suggestion of still distance which is char- 
acteristic of our English summer days, 
and has its equal in no other land, over 
no other sea. 

The yellow sun was high in the 
heavens with nothing more formidable to 
obstruct its rays than a slight shimmering 
haze. The air was light and balmy — 
indeed, in earth and air and sea there was 
a subtle buoyancy which tells of coming 
spring, and creates in men’s hearts a 
braver contemplation of life. 

14 


210 


Suspense 

Mrs. Wylie watched them depart with- 
out a pang of remorse or a sting of con- 
science. Indeed, she calculated the risk 
with equanimity. 

“ I think,” she reflected, “ that this walk 
to the old lighthouse will be one of those 
trifling incidents which seem to remain 
engraved in our hearts long after the 
memory of greater events has passed 
away. They are both self-contained and 
resolute, but no human being is quite 
beyond the influence of outward things.” 

For some time the two young people 
spoke in a scrappy way, of indifferent 
topics. The narrow path only allowed 
one to pass at a time, and the moor was 
so broken that progression at the side of 
the path was almost impossible. After, 
however, the Mizzen Heath Coastguard 
Station had been left behind, and the 
precipitous slope descended, the sea-wall 
afforded better walking, and the conver- 
sation assumed a more personal vein. 

“ Tell me,” said Brenda pleasantly, 
“your plans in case of war! We know 


Good-bye ! 211 

absolutely nothing of your proposed move- 
ments.” 

“ I know nothing myself, except in a 
very general way. Of course, we shall 
be guided by circumstances.” 

“We ... ? ” 

“Yes; I take two men with me. The 
campaign will be on too large a scale for 
one man to watch unaided. These two 
act as my lieutenants. I have chosen 
them myself. One is a future baronet 
with a taste for sport and literature, which 
is a rare combination. The other is a 
soldier, twenty-five years older than my- 
self. We shall be a funny trio; but I 
think it will be a success, for we mean 
to make it one. The two men are full 
of energy and as hard as nails. Our 
plans are almost as voluminous and as 
comprehensive as Moltke’s. It will be 
a great war, and we intend our history 
of it to be the only one worth reading. 
The old soldier is a Frenchman, so we 
shall tell our story in two languages 
simultaneously.” 


212 Suspense 

“ And where will it be — where will the 
battles be fought ? ” 

“ It is hard to say, because so much 
depends upon the apathy of the Turks. 
They will probably allow them to cross 
the Danube before making an effort to 
stop them, and the thick of it may be in 
Bulgaria again. I shall be at the Danube 
to see the Russians cross — probably at 
Galatz. There are small towns south of 
the Danube of which the names will be 
historical by this time next year, and in 
all probability there are men who will 
have immortalized themselves before then, 
although they are quite unknown now. 
War is the path by which the world 
progresses.” 

“ I suppose the younger Skobeleff will 
do something wonderful. I know your 
admiration for him.” 

“Yes. If he does not get killed before 
he is across the Danube. As a leader I 
admire him, but not as a strategist. There 
are other men I know of also who will come 
to the front, but in the Turkish army indi- 


Good-bye ! 213 

viduality is more important than in the 
Russian. The lower the standard of dis- 
cipline the higher is the power of personal 
influence over an army. The Turks de- 
pend entirely upon the individual capa- 
bilities of a few men — Suleiman, Osman, 
Tefik, and a few others.” 

Brenda was not listening with the at- 
tention she usually accorded to Theodore 
Trist, whatever the subject of his dis- 
course might happen to be, and he knew 
it. She had a strange trick of lapsing 
into a stony silence at odd moments, and 
he rarely failed to detect the slight differ- 
ence. Such fits of absorption were usu- 
ally followed by the raising of some deep 
abstract question, or an opinion of per- 
sonal bearing. It may have been mere 
chance that caused him to cease some- 
what abruptly, and continue walking by 
her side in silence ; or it is possible that 
he knew her humours as few people knew 
them. The question of a Russo-Turkish 
War had suddenly lost all interest, and he 
might as well have told his opinion to the 


214 


Suspense 

winds as to this girl, who had, a moment 
earlier, been a most intelligent listener. 

For some time they walked on without 
speaking. The soft turf of the so-called 
sea-wall, which was nothing else than an 
embankment, gave forth no sound beneath 
their feet. The tide was out, and the day 
being still, there came to their ears only 
a soft, murmuring, continuous song from 
the little waves. 

At last Brenda turned a little and looked 
at him in her thoughtful, analytical way, 
as if to read on his features an answer to 
some question which had arisen in her 
mind. 

“ Yes,” said Trist, smiling at her gently. 
“ Go on. You are about to propound one 
of those very deep theories which invari- 
ably suggest themselves to you in the 
middle of my most interesting obser- 
vations.” 

She laughed rather guiltily as she shook 
her head in denial. 

“No. . . . I was only . . . wondering.” 

“Wondering — — ?” he repeated inter- 


21 5 


Good-bye ! 

rogatively, but she omitted to answer his 
implied question, and he did not press it. 

“ Do you know,” she said, after a little 
pause, “ that you are the greatest puzzle I 
have ever come across ? ” 

“ I am sorry,” he murmured, with mock 
humility. 

“ Oh, don’t apologize ! I dare say it is 
entirely unintentional. What I cannot 
understand is your nonchalant way of 
talking of certain things. For instance, 
nothing seems to be farther from your 
thoughts at this moment than the possi- 
bility of your being . . . killed.” 

He chipped off the head of a withered 
thistle with his stick before replying in a 
low, steady voice, very deliberately : 

“ And yet nothing is nearer to them.” 

“ That is what I cannot understand. 
I think women look farther ahead. They 
seem to have the power of realizing at 
the beginning what the end may be — 
realizing it more fully than men, I mean.” 

“ I doubt it ! ” he answered. “ I have 
to make two sets of arrangements, two 


2l6 


Suspense 

sets of plans. One takes it for granted 
that I shall come through it all safely, 
the other goes upon the theory that I 
shall be killed. Each is complete in itself, 
independent of its companion. When I 
say that I will do something at a certain 
time, or be in a certain place, there is a 
‘ D. V.’ understood, hidden between the 
lines. Everything is of course ‘ Deo vol- 
ente,’ but you would not have me drag it 
in obtrusively.” 

“ No . . ; naturally not. But what I 
cannot understand is your power of facing 
the two possibilities — or, at the least, the 
latter — with apparent indifference. Is 
that the difference that exists between 
the courage of a man and that of a 
woman ? ” 

“ No,” he replied, looking at her very 
gravely, and speaking in a tone which 
gave weight to words of apparently small 
importance ; “ I think not, for women face 
possibilities and even certainties with 
equal pluck. It requires as much cour- 
age to remain at home and wait as it 


21 7 


Good-bye ! 

does to go out and face the danger, for 
danger is never so unpleasant as the an- 
ticipation of it.” 

She remembered these words afterwards, 
and recognized then the fuller sense he 
had intended them to convey. In the 
meantime, however, she held to her point. 

“ It is not exactly in that way that I 
mean,” she murmured slowly. “ Not from 
a question of personal bravery at all. I 
meant . . 

She hesitated in embarrassment, and he 
hastened to remove it. 

“ Yes — go on.” 

“ I was wondering whether you ever 
looked at it from a religious point of 
view.” 

He did not reply at once, and in some 
way the pause gave a greater gravity to 
words. 

“Yes, Brenda. You must not think 
that. Every man has his religion, and I 
have mine. It may consist in faith more 
than in works, perhaps, but it is there, 
nevertheless.” 


2 1 8 Suspense 

“ But you are half a fatalist.” 

“ In some degree I am, but I do not 
go so far as to say that nothing matters. 
Everything matters! We are intended to 
do our best, to make the best of our 
lives ; but there is undoubtedly a scheme 
which is beyond our reach and far above 
our petty influence or endeavour.” 

Brenda was no mean theologist, and 
she now set to work to demolish Trist’s 
system of fatalism, while half leaning 
towards it herself. Somewhat to her 
surprise she found that his knowledge 
upon certain points was equal to her own, 
and in some cases superior ; his acquaint- 
ance with Eastern lore and Oriental creeds 
was quite beyond her depth. 

In this manner they reached the light- 
house, passed a few minutes with its soli- 
tary inmate, and set off homewards again 
across the marsh. Mrs. Wylie would, 
perhaps, have been surprised could she 
have overheard their conversation, which 
was upon very different topics to what 
she had expected. 


219 


Good-bye ! 

Before they reached the rising ground 
at the edge of the moor, the sun was low 
over the western plain. A faint mauve- 
coloured haze rose from the damp earth 
and hovered weirdly among the pollarded 
oaks and rank marsh grasses. The whole 
scene was dismal, and the distant note of 
a jack-snipe seemed only to add to the 
lifelessness of the land. 

As they passed through one of the 
swing-gates on the sea-wall, Brenda turned 
her head, and in a moment the character- 
istic beauty of the sunset caught her 
attention. 

“ Look ! ” she exclaimed in little more 
than a whisper. 

He obeyed, closing the gate, and rest- 
ing his arms upon it. Thus they stood, 
side by side, without speaking. She in 
her pure upright maidenhood, with the 
sunset glow warming her refined face 
with a hue of great beauty, for her eyes 
were deep and pensive as woman’s eyes 
rarely are, while her lips were parted with 
a simple faithful wonderment which was 


220 


Suspense 

almost childlike. He rested his arms 
upon the gray, moss-grown oak of the 
gate, and looked upon the hopeless scene 
with meekly contemplative eyes. His 
square chin was thrust forward, and the 
indescribable incongruity of his face was 
absurdly prominent. There was a great 
strength and a wondrous softness, a 
mighty courage and a meek resignation, 
an indefatigable energy and a philosophic 
calm. So may the great Buonaparte have 
leant his arms upon yon low wall at Saint 
Helena, and wondered over the utter in- 
comprehensibility of human existence. 

It was Brenda who at last broke the 
silence, without moving limb or muscle. 

“ So you are going on Monday ? ” 

“ Yes ... I must.” 

Something in his voice caused her 
breath to come quickly. 

“But you will come back?” she whis- 
pered almost pleadingly. 

He moved, and laid his strong bare 
hand over the small gloved fingers resting 
on the gate. 


221 


Good-bye ! 

“ Yes. I will come back ! ” 

Then they turned and walked home 
in silence. 

That was their farewell. They never 
spoke together again in confidence before 
he left on the Monday morning. There 
was, indeed, a pressure of the hand and 
a cheery word of parting on the little 
platform of Wyvenwich Station; but their 
two souls went out unto each other, and 
stood face to face in one long ecstasy of 
parting by that old oaken gate upon the 
sea-wall. 


222 


Suspense 


CHAPTER XVIII 

AT WORK 

S OME have wondered why blasphemy 
is excusable when it is spoken from 
a throne. It seems that many crimes 
have been deliberately set forth upon 
paper under the exculpating heading of, 
“ In the name of God — Amen. We,” 
etc., etc. This thought cannot well escape 
suggestion while perusing a declaration of 
war. It is a subterfuge — a mean attempt 
to assign the responsibility to One who is 
mightier than princes or potentates. God 
does not declare war — it is man. 

On the twenty-fourth day of April, 
eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, the 
Czar of all the Russias gave forth to his 
people that, bowing his head to the evident 
desire of the Almighty, he reluctantly 
declared war against the Ottoman Empire. 
There was much rhetoric about Christian 


At Work 


223 


nations suffering beneath the lash of 
Mohammedan hatred ; stories were told 
of shocking cruelties practised upon an 
oppressed people, coldly worded state- 
ments were made of misgovernment, mis- 
appropriation, theft. And the remedy to 
all these was, if it may please you, 
war ! From the formal declaration, with 
its pharisaical self-laudation, its rolling 
periods and mock reluctance, fourteen 
letters might have been selected, and set 
in order so as to spell a single word in 
which lay the explanation of it all. That 
word was — “ Constantinople.” 

Before the official opening of hostilities, 
Russia was prepared, and Turkey (despite 
a long warning) but half ready, as usual. 
The Russian troops entered Roumania 
and Turkish Armenia at once, the inhabi- 
tants of both countries, with Oriental 
readiness, receiving them as deliverers. 
The day following the declaration of war 
saw the occupation of the town of Galatz. 

Theodore Trist had, as he told Brenda 
he intended, taken up his quarters in this 


224 Suspense 

small town upon the Danube, and actu- 
ally passed through its streets in the midst 
of the Northern troops unsuspected. 
When the conquerors had shaken down 
into their new quarters, and military dis- 
cipline was beginning to make itself felt 
throughout the city, he discreetly van- 
ished, and, crossing the Danube in a small 
boat, made his way South. At this time 
England began to receive the benefit of a 
brilliantly conceived and steadily executed 
plan of transmitting news. Trist and his 
two lieutenants appeared to haunt the en- 
tirety of the Ottoman Empire. One of 
them appeared to find himself invariably 
within reach of any spot where events of 
interest might be occurring. And from 
this time until the end of the great war 
this ceaseless flow of carefully-sifted in- 
formation continued to set westward to 
Paris and London. The first official 
notice taken was an imperial decree, for- 
bidding the admittance into Russia of 
the French and English journals to which 
Trist was attached as war-correspondent. 


At Work 


225 


This heavy punishment in no way affected 
the equanimity of these mistaken organs, 
of which the circulation in the Northern 
empire had never attained a height worth 
consideration or even mention. A sack- 
ful of copies under private addresses had 
been the utmost limit, and out of these 
the majority were usually lost in trans- 
mission with that patient, bland persist- 
ency by means of which the Russian Gov- 
ernment usually succeeds in quelling any 
private and individual attempt to learn 
what the world is saying. It is remark- 
able how little is known in England of the 
method of procedure in a country so near 
at hand as Russia. Hong Kong is bet- 
ter known than Moscow, Valparaiso than 
Tver. It is, for instance, a matter of sur- 
prise to many intelligent English men and 
women to learn that our newspapers are, 
with one or two exceptions, forbidden en- 
trance into the Czar’s dominions. And 
in the case of those exceptions there is 
no circulation — each copy comes under 
a private cover, with the probability of 


226 Suspense 

being opened several times on the way. 
Moreover, objectionable paragraphs, or, in 
the case of illustrated journals, sketches 
in any way connected with the seamy 
side of Slavonic life, are ruthlessly obliter- 
ated with a black pad. The transmission 
of news is virtually in the hands of the 
Government, with the natural result that 
all untoward events are hushed up, while 
pleasant things are glorified to the infinite 
profit of those in office. Respecting the 
progress of humanity, the events of the 
outer world, and the march of civilization, 
the whole of the vast continent of Russia 
is kept in the dark. Even with our mar- 
vellous facilities, the transmission of news 
over such vast tracts of land, across such 
stupendous plains, would be a matter of 
some difficulty ; it is, therefore, easy to 
arrest the progress of thought, and force 
back men’s brains into the apathetic, 
voiceless endurance of brutes. 

Under these circumstances it will be 
readily understood that the views of the 
great English critic were looked upon 


At Work 


22 7 


with fear and dislike; additionally so, 
perhaps, because no one could accuse 
him of partiality or political bias. He 
studied war as an art, whereas the Russian 
staff had in most cases taken it up as a 
profession. 

During the months that followed many 
brave men came to the front; but few 
reputations were made, whereas a number 
were lost. Gourko and Skobeleff proved 
that their personal courage, their calm 
assumption of a terrible responsibility, was 
something almost superhuman ; but as 
strategists they came within measurable 
distance of failure. The one has the stain 
of three thousand lives lost in one bold 
march upon his military reputation — 
namely, the crossing of the Balkans ; while 
the other, the wild, half-mad Skobeleff, 
will have it remembered against him that 
two thousand of his “ children ” fell in 
the storming of one redoubt, and three 
thousand more perished in attempting to 
hold it. 

But in fairness to these reckless soldiers, 


228 


Suspense 

it must be kept in mind that the Russians 
played, in a literal as well as metaphorical 
sense, an uphill game. They had to 
storm heights, “ rush ” redoubts, and ad- 
vance on trenches against the Berdan 
rifle in the hands of the Turk. Just as 
each man knows his own business best, 
so have we all our special way of fighting. 
The Russians are not brilliant at the at- 
tack, because they are too reckless of life, 
and in the excitement of the moment ex- 
pose themselves with criminal prodigality ; 
whereas there is no finer defender of a 
fortified position than the Turk. 

Again, Skobeleff and Gourko were ham- 
pered by being in too constant and fre- 
quent communication with the royal ama- 
teur soldiers in their comfortable quarters 
on the Danube. 

At first the Russians seemed to carry 
all before them, and the chronic unreadi- 
ness of the enemy was a matter for laugh- 
ter. Having successfully crossed the 
Danube towards the end of June, driving 
the Turks before them step by step to 


At Work 


229 

Matchin, the campaign was looked upon 
as a mere parade. But Theodore Trist, 
retreating slowly from the Danube before 
the advance of the Northern army, held a 
different opinion. 

“At present,” he wrote in the second 
week in July, “ everything seems to be 
against us. But the time is coming when 
some good 'men will force their way to the 
fore ; and the power of individual in- 
fluence over an ill-disciplined but well- 
armed horde like this is incalculable. 
Suleiman Pasha is said to be coming with 
his hardened troops, and from him great 
things may be expected. He is a good 
soldier, with an energy which is rendered 
more striking by its rarity in this country. 
When last I saw him he was spare in 
figure, much browned by exposure, singu- 
larly active, and as hard as nails. In ap- 
pearance he is unlike a Turk, being fair, 
with ruddy hair and quick eyes. His men 
are more like a band of hill-robbers than a 
trained army, for they possess no distinct 
uniform ; but they are full of fight. His 


230 Suspense 

staff is ludicrously informal, possessing 
no fine titles, and being entirely destitute 
of gold braid. The Turks are a strange 
mixture of impassibility and stubbornness. 
At times their fatalism gives way to an 
overwhelming strength of purpose, almost 
defying fate, and it is quite within the 
bounds of possibility that a trifling error 
on the part of the Russians may turn the 
tide suddenly upon them, and a disastrous 
retreat to the Danube will follow.” 

By the time that the letter from which 
the above is extracted arrived in England, 
the far-seeing correspondent’s prophecy 
had in part fallen true. The tide of 
fortune had set in in favour of the 
Moslem, and although a retreat was not 
as yet whispered of, it was held certain 
by experts that more men were absolutely 
required by the Russians in order to con- 
tinue the campaign. 

At this time the name of a hitherto 
unknown town in the north of Bulgaria 
was constantly on men’s tongues. Until 
now no one had ever heard of Plevna, 


At Work 


231 

which, nevertheless, was destined to be 
the chief topic of conversation through- 
out all the civilized world for many 
months to come. The genius of one 
man raised this small city from its ob- 
scurity to a proud place in the annals of 
warfare, and the defence of Plevna will 
ever stand forth as a proof of the influence 
of one strong individuality over a whole 
army ; and, one might almost say, upon 
the march of events. 

Of course it is easy to state that much 
depended upon chance, but it is not only 
in warfare that we all have to wait upon 
chance. Those who step in quickly when 
fortune leaves the gate ajar are the win- 
ners in the war we are engaged in here 
below. Had Kriidener occupied Plevna 
when he received the order to do so, 
Osman Pasha might have died without 
leaving his mark upon the sands of time. 
But the Russian delayed, and the Turk 
stepped in. Osman saw at once the great 
strategetic value of Plevna, and Kriidener, 
the man of many mistakes, was outwitted. 


232 Suspense 

“ I see,” wrote Trist at this time in a 
private letter to his editor, which was not 
published until later, “ a subtle change in 
the atmosphere of events. It seems to 
me that the tide is turning. I will now 
attach myself definitely to the fortunes 
of Plevna. The time has come for me 
to give up my ubiquitous endeavours ; 
to watch one spot only. My colleagues 
are full of dash and energy ; on them you 
must now depend for the other movements 
of the campaign. Osman is here, and 
Skobeleff is in this part of the country as 
far as I can learn — there is a feverish 
restlessness among the Russians, which 
suggests his presence. With these two 
men face to face Plevna will become 
historical, if it is not so already, for it will 
mark, firstly, the greatest military bungle 
of the age (Kriidener’s neglect) ; secondly 
. . . who knows ? Osman is a wonderful 
fellow — that is all I can tell you now. 
I remain here, and if we are surrounded 
I will stick to Plevna until the end!' 

The recipient of this letter, sitting in 


At Work 


2 33 

his quiet little room in Fleet Street, 
looked at the last words again. They 
were underlined with a firm dash, and 
immediately below followed the simple 
signature. About the entire letter there 
was a straightforward sense of purpose — 
a feeling, as it were, that this man knew 
what he was doing, and was ready to 
face the consequence of every action. 
The editor shook his vast head from 
side to side with a quiet and tolerant 
smile. 

“ The fever is upon him,” he said. “ It 
is a thousand pities that he is not a 
soldier.” 

Then he leant forward and took an 
envelope from the stationery case upon 
the table in front of him. Into this he 
slipped the folded letter, addressing it 
subsequently to Mrs. Wylie, at Wyl’s Hall, 
Wyvenwich. 

On the last day of July, Prince Scha- 
hofsky and Baron Krlidener attacked 
Plevna. A combination had been in- 
tended, but Kriidener was again in fault. 


234 Suspense 

He was not ready at the hour appointed, 
and Schahofsky was led into the fatal 
error of attacking a superior force of 
Turks in a fortified position. The result 
of this was the loss of almost the whole of 
his fine army corps. The Russian soldiers 
charged gallantly but foolishly upon a 
literal wall of fire, for there is no man 
steadier in a trench than the fatalist. In 
some years, when the quick-firing rifle is 
perfected, there will be no such thing as 
carrying a breast-work at the point of the 
bayonet, for no man will live to stand up 
within forty yards of the position held. 
Even at Plevna, against an imperfect rifle 
in the hands of a half-trained, badly fed, 
poorly-accoutred soldier, the slaughter was 
terrible, and the result small. Only Sko- 
beleff succeeded in really and literally 
carrying an intrenchment by the bayonet ; 
and had he not been half mad with excite- 
ment and wholly carried away by the 
wild lust of battle, he would never have 
attempted it, for the men literally crawled 
over heaps of their slain comrades. The 


At Work 


2 35 

terrible work of the quick-firing rifle was 
only too apparent. 

After the first assault upon Plevna the 
Russians settled down to a long siege, 
and heavy artillery was brought to bear 
upon the ill-fated town from every point 
of vantage on the surrounding hills. Step 
by step the northern foe crept up towards 
the town, until the sombre-clad figures 
within the redoubts were almost recog- 
nisable from the Russian lines. 

Finally, it was one day announced that 
the last communication had been cut off 
and Plevna was surrounded. Like some 
sullen prisoner in the hands of a ruthless 
enemy, the fortress stood grimly silent, 
and all the world wondered pitifully what 
terrible tragedy might be working out its 
latest chapters within that small circle of 
blood-stained steel. 

Vague reports reached England that 
there could not now be any food in Plevna. 
The garrison must be starving. Women 
and children were — thank God ! — but 
few; for Osman had sent them away. 


236 Suspense 

Day by day the fall of this unforeseen, 
unsuspected stronghold was predicted, but 
day after day the dingy Crescent hung in 
the morning breeze, and every point was 
guarded. 

The editor of the great English news- 
paper sat in his little room in Fleet Street 
and watched events from afar. No word 
reached him, for Plevna was silent, but he 
displayed no anxiety. 

“ Wait ! ” he said to all inquirers. 
“ Wait a bit. Trist is in there, and when 
the time comes he will astonish us all. 
One can always rely implicitly on Trist!” 


Plevna 


2 37 


CHAPTER XIX 

PLEVNA 

T HERE is in one of the minor streets 
of Plevna a small baker’s shop, 
with no other sign indicating that bread 
may be bought within than the painted 
semblance of a curiously twisted cake 
upon the yellow wall between the window 
and the low door. 

On the seventh of September, eighteen 
hundred and seventy-seven, this painted 
cake was the nearest approach to bread 
that could be seen in the neighbourhood. 
For many weeks there had been no pleas- 
ant odour of browning loaves, no warm 
air from the oven at the back of the shop. 
Curious irony of fate! The baker had 
died of starvation. The foul heap of 
clothing lying in the ditch a few yards 
down the hill was all the earthly remnant 
of the late owner of this useless establish- 


9 


238 Suspense 

meat. Useless because there was nothing 
in Plevna now to bake. He had been 
dead many days, but there seemed to be 
no question of burying him. There were 
too many wounded, too many sick, dying, 
and festering men, for the living to have 
time to think of the dead. The heavy 
pestilential air was full of the groans of 
these poor wretches. 

Within the little shop were three men 
— one seated on a rough table, a second 
standing before him, the third perched 
nonchalantly on the window-sill smoking 
a cigarette. The last-mentioned had the 
advantage of his companions in the mat- 
ter of years, but of the three his grav- 
ity of demeanour was most noticeable. 
Amidst such squalid surroundings — by 
the side, as it were, of death — his per- 
sonal appearance was somewhat remark- 
able, for he was neat and clean in dress. 
His fresh rosy cheek had that cleanly ap- 
pearance which denotes the recent passage 
of the razor, the light moustache was 
brushed aside with a rakish upward flour- 


Plevna 


239 


ish. The nose was small and straight, 
the eyes blue. A bright red fez tilted 
rather forward completed the smart ap- 
pearance of the smoker, who manipulated 
his cigarette daintily, and, while listening 
to the conversation of his two companions, 
made no attempt to join in it. This man 
was Tefik Bey, Osman Pasha’s chief of 
staff, one of the defenders of Plevna. 
Tefik is a puzzle. One cannot tell what 
sort of man he is. He is indescribable. 
Taciturn to a decree, he was barely thirty 
years of age, and looked younger. A 
dark, sombre, silent man is more or less a 
straightforward production of Nature ; but 
Tefik had the appearance of a light-hearted 
talker, and belied it. 

The man standing in the middle of the 
small, low-roofed chamber was his wonder- 
ful chief, Osman Pasha. Tall, strongly 
built, and handsome, he formed a striking 
contrast to his young colleague. A loose, 
dark-blue cloak hung from his shoulders, 
and the inevitable fez surmounted his 
powerful brow. A short black beard con- 


240 Suspense 

cealed a chin of unusual firmness, and 
from time to time a nervous movement of 
a somewhat dusky hand brushed the hair 
aside with a rustling sound. The nose 
was large and inclined downwards with a 
heavy curve, while beneath bushy brows a 
pair of steadfast black eyes looked sorrow- 
fully forth upon the world. There was 
determination and a great energy in those 
eyes, despite their wan thoughtfulness. 

He who sat at the table we know. It 
was Theodore Trist. Clean and carefully 
shaven, he was literally clad in rags ; but 
his face had lost its old dreaminess, its 
vague meekness of demeanour. A clear 
light in his eyes, the set of his lips, con- 
veyed in some indefinite way that this 
man was in his element. Despite his 
hollow cheeks and sunken temples, in the 
midst of that heavy reek of death and 
blood, this Englishman was visibly happy. 

“ Do you want/’ Osman was saying, 
“ to see what we can do with our triple 
ranks of Berdans ? ” 

“ Yes.” 


Plevna 


241 


“ To-morrow Skobeleff will attack the 
redoubt again. He has positive orders to 
take it at any cost.” 

“ Will he take it? ” asked Trist. 

Osman turned with a smile towards 
Tefik, who was lighting a second cigar- 
ette. The chief of staff shrugged his 
shoulders, and threw away the end of the 
last cigarette with a sideward movement of 
his lips. 

Osman shrugged his shoulders in pre- 
cisely the same way. 

“ Who knows ? ” he said quietly. “ If 
they value the redoubt at four thousand 
lives, they might do it.” 

Trist set his two elbows on the table 
and looked up at the speaker’s face with 
calm speculative scrutiny. He did not 
offer him a chair, because he knew that 
Osman rarely sat down. The great 
soldier had no time for rest. 

“ Skobeleff,” said the Englishman, “ is 
a great man, but Napoleon would have 
been in here some time ago.” 

Tefik moved slightly, and looked towards 

16 


242 


Suspense 

his two companions with a vague smile. 
He knew nothing of Napoleon the Great 
and his method of making war. More- 
over, he did not care to know. 

It was the chief of staff who finally 
broke a silence of some duration. 

“ Listen, Osman,” he said in a soft, 
dreamy voice. “ I hear the sound of a 
new gun. The Russians have mounted 
another big one. We are going to get 
it very hot.” 

All three raised their heads and lis- 
tened. After the lapse of a minute a dull 
thud broke upon their ears. The Rus- 
sians had mounted a new siege gun, and 
Plevna was beginning its career as a tar- 
get for a steadily increasing army of ar- 
tillery. There was no indecent haste in 
loading or sponging. It was excellent 
practice for the gunners, and through the 
next three months the sound of heavy 
firing never quite ceased night or day. 
At times, by way of variety, the whole of 
the artillery combined in directing its fire 
upon a spot previously selected. But the 


Plevna 


243 


grim game was not all on one side, for 
Plevna pluckily returned blow for blow. 

“ There is,” said an expert at Russian 
headquarters, “ a European directing those 
guns — probably a German.” 

But Trist never sighted a single shot, 
although he did not withhold his advice. 

“ I know where it is,” said Tefik at last. 
“ Perhaps we can get at it.” 

And he left the room quietly. 

The two men remaining there did not 
speak for some time. Trist was occupied 
with a large sheet of paper covered with 
a fine writing, and showing columns of 
figures. Osman had brought this to him, 
and was now evidently waiting for it. 
The Englishman skimmed up the columns 
with the celerity of a banker’s clerk, mut- 
tering the additions in his native language. 
The hand that held the pen was brown 
and scarred with manual labour, for Trist 
had worked in the trenches day and night. 

“ Yes,” he said at length, looking up in 
a business-like, curt way, which showed 
that between these men there was some 


244 Suspense 

bond of comradeship. “ Those figures 
are all right. At an extremity you could 
even reduce the allowance of soup, could 
you not? ” 

The soldier shook his head with a wan 
and momentary smile. 

“ Scarcely,” he replied. “ It is getting 
colder every day. If we want to hold out 
we must keep up the hearts of the men, 
and if there is nothing to press them 
upwards all our hearts drop into our 
stomachs, my friend.” 

“ There is more clothing to be had. 
We get a fresh supply day by day,” said 
Trist, with an uneasy sigh. 

Osman winced. The meaning was only 
too clear, for the time had long since 
gone by for men to scruple over stripping 
the dead for the benefit of the living. 

“Yes. You are right.” 

With these words the commander of 
Plevna turned to go. 

“ What news have you ? ” inquired 
Trist indifferently, as he set in order the 
papers lying upon his table. He spoke 


Plevna 


245 


in a loud voice, as all men did in Plevna, 
because of the roar of artillery and the 
rolling echo among the hills. 

“ Oh — nothing of importance ! ” 

“ Are you quite without communica- 
tions from outside? ” 

Osman turned upon the threshold, and 
looked back with a smile of assumed 
density. Then he disappeared through 
the low doorway. 

Trist turned to his papers again, but 
he had not begun writing when the 
Turkish commander appeared once more. 

“ Trist,” he said, coming forward with 
long, heavy strides. 

“ Yes.” 

“ I can get you out to-night. Had you 
not better go ? ” 

“ I would rather stay,” replied the 
Englishman. “ I am neither a woman 
nor a child.” 

“ But why run the risk ? ” 

“ It is my duty.” 

“ What we are enduring now,” said 
Osman, in a dull, painful voice, “is 


246 Suspense 

nothing to what I foresee. At present 
we make some small attempt to collect 
bodies and . . . and limbs, and bury 
them. Soon that will be impossible, for 
we shall want all our men at the guns 
and in the redoubts. The winter is 
coming on — food is already scarce — the 
wounded cannot be cared far. They and 
the dead will lie about the streets rotting 
in their own blood. My friend ! this 
place will be a hell on earth ! ” 

“Nevertheless, I stay.” 

“ Disease will take the town before the 
Russians break through — few of us will 
live to see Christmas ! ” pleaded Osman. 

The Englishman looked up, pen in 
hand. There was actually a smile hover- 
ing upon his firm lips. 

“ It is useless,” he said very gently. “ I 
stay till the end.” 

“ As you like,” murmured the soldier, 
leaving the room. 

Trist did not begin work again for 
some time. The pile of papers around 
was of sufficient dimensions to alarm a 


Plevna 


247 

less methodical labourer, but in the ap- 
parent disorder there was really a perfect 
system. Darkness closed in soon, and 
the war-correspondent lighted a small 
lamp. Then he laid aside the larger mass 
of paper, and selected a sheet which he 
doubled carefully into the form of a letter. 

“ It is better,” he said, “ to face all 
probabilities. I shall write to her now, 
in case we are starved to death in here 
like rats.” 

Far into the night this strange, restless 
Englishman sat at the little table writing. 
Heedless of the roar of artillery, the merry 
call of the bugle, and the groan of the 
dying, he wrote on at a great speed, for 
above all he was a writer. His pen sped 
over the paper with that precision which 
only comes from long practice — line after 
line, page after page of the small paper, 
perfect in punctuation, ready for the press 
in true journalistic form. 

He folded the letter, and enclosed it 
in an envelope, which he addressed care- 
fully in a legible roundhand. 


248 Suspense 

“There,” he murmured, “let that be 
the last line I write to-night. It seems 
to me that we are on the verge of a 
crisis. Osman has something on his 
mind ... I wonder if he means to cut 
his way out.” 

Before lying down to rest on the heap 
of straw which served him as a bed, he 
collected all his papers and placed them 
securely in a large leather despatch-case, 
upon which was painted in black letters 
the address of the newspaper which he 
served. This was his nightly custom ; 
for he was out all day upon the walls 
among the devoted children of Islam, 
and where bullets are flying no man has 
a right to ignore the chances of death. 
There was no bravado in the action, but a 
mere simple method. The chances were 
much in favour of the little baker’s shop 
being left empty one night ; but that was 
no reason why the British public should 
be defrauded of its rightful sensation in 
the matter of words written by a hand 
that is still, for nothing is so safe to draw 


Plevna 


249 

as the last words of one who has died in 
battle or mishap. 

People who live peaceably at home 
are accustomed to receive great odds in 
the game of life and death. They, there- 
fore, cannot understand why others — 
wanderers, sailors at all times, soldiers 
in time of war — are content with the 
lighter favour, and have the power of liv- 
ing happily in close proximity to death. 


250 


Suspense 


CHAPTER XX 

THE PUZZLE OF LIFE 

F OR five days and five nights there was 
little sleep to be had in Plevna. 
The Russians did not attack, as had been 
generally expected within the town, but 
commenced a terrible bombardment. Day 
and night the heavy guns were served by 
continual relays of men, and life in the re- 
doubts was such as to reconcile the most 
philosophic to death. Within the town 
the scene was simply hellish. Osman has 
been accused of neglecting his wounded, 
but no man who crouched in the little 
town he so gloriously defended during 
those days would have the courage to aver 
that he could have done more than he 
did. 

Tuesday, the eleventh of September, 
dawned gray and hopeless. The smoke 
of a million rifles, a thousand cannon, 


The Puzzle of Life 25 1 

hung heavily over the low hills. The 
continuous roar of the last few days 
seemed to have benumbed the very air, 
even as it had paralyzed men’s senses. 

In the Russian camp upon the Loftcha 
road there were signs of extra activity. 
The artillery fire was somewhat slacker. 

“ They will attack the redoubts to-day,” 
Theodore Trist said to himself, as he sur- 
veyed the position of affairs in the gray 
morning light. There was not much to 
be seen, owing to the density of the fog 
hanging low in the vales, but the five 
days’ bombardment followed by audible 
activity in camp had some meaning. 

Osman knew his weak point as well as 
it was known by Skobeleff ; but the Rus- 
sian general — foolhardy, reckless, wild as 
he was — ■ hesitated to attack. 

But there is no man who can boast that 
he is free from the trammels of duty. 
“ Duty is a certainty,” says one of our 
great living preachers, and we often lose 
sight of that fact. Skobeleff had received 
orders to take the redoubt in the curve of 


252 Suspense 

the Loftcha road, and on the eleventh 
of September he made ready to obey. 
Whether it was a criminal blunder or a 
deliberate sacrifice of human life, it is not 
for us to say; nor must we blame the 
young general who, much against his will, 
sent his men forward to a certain death. 

It was afternoon before the advance 
was made, and in many places the fog had 
lifted. 

Theodore Trist, with that instinct of 
warfare which was his curse, had selected 
a spot on the hill behind the doomed forti- 
fication, and thence, or from near at hand, 
he witnessed that terrible day’s work. 

Failure was Skobeleff’s bete noir. Suc- 
cess in this case was an absolute necessity. 
There was only one way of gaining it in 
face of the horrible fire which was waiting 
within the fortification. Like the waves 
of ocean the Russian general swept his 
men up at carefully selected intervals. No 
troops in the world could have advanced 
under such galling volleys — they were 
bound to waver and fall back. But at the 


The Puzzle of Life 


2 53 


moment of hesitation a fresh regiment 
came on at the charge with a wild shout, 
bearing on the others in front of them. 
Four regiments rushed on thus to their 
death — three thousand men in three hun- 
dred yards. In the redoubt the Turks 
fought with that calm, desperate fatalism 
which makes such grand soldiers of the 
followers of Mahomed. 

Theodore Trist, standing on the scarp 
of a second redoubt two hundred and 
fifty yards to the rear, wrote rapidly in 
his book, his mouth quivering with ex- 
citement. At last he could stand it no 
longer. 

“ By God ! ” he exclaimed hoarsely, “ I 
have never seen anything like this ! ” 

And shouting incoherently, he ran down 
the slope towards the redoubt. 

At this moment Skobeleff came charg- 
ing up at the head of his last reserve, a 
mere handful of sharpshooters. Trist 
saw the general fall and roll over with his 
stricken horse. A great throb seemed to 
choke him, and he barely realized that 


254 


Suspense 

Skobeleff was on his feet again leading 
on his men, waving his sword and shriek- 
ing like a madman. A moment later the 
Englishman was borne uphill before a 
rushing mass of Turks, black with powder, 
voiceless, inhuman in their fury. The 
redoubt was lost! 

But Trist did not give way to the 
general panic. The instinct of journalism 
was too strong in him, and he stood for 
a moment between the two redoubts look- 
ing on with practised eyes. He knew 
exactly how many men had been defend- 
ing the position now lost, and was busy 
counting roughly the small number of 
fugitives. In certain corners of the re- 
doubt the fight was still going on, but 
the Turks in there were no better than 
dead men. 

While he was still there a Russian non- 
commissioned officer picked up the rifle 
of a Turk, and took aim at the solitary 
figure standing upon the slope, but Skobe- 
leff knocked away the barrel with his 
sword. 


The Puzzle of Life 


255 


“ Not that man, my child ! ” he ex- 
claimed, in a voice hoarse with shouting. 
“ I know him. Let the story of this fight 
be told ! ” 

The artillery fire had ceased all round, 
and for a moment there was a great silence 
in the valley, only broken by the moan of 
the dying and an occasional rifle-shot here 
and there. It was almost as if the living 
stood aghast — ashamed and cowering 
before their Maker, by the side of their 
grim handiwork. And so darkness came 
over the land, covering the hideousness 
of it with a merciful veil. 

“ They cannot possibly hold it!” Trist 
said to an officer who accosted him as he 
made his way — dazed and stupefied — 
back into the town. “ It is untenable.” 

This was no idle attempt at consolation. 
The Russian general had obeyed orders, 
but now he knew that his gallant work 
had been all in vain. By itself the re- 
doubt was useless, for it was fully exposed 
to the Turkish fire, and there was no 
material at hand to reconstruct it, had 


256 Suspense 

his weary men been equal to the task, 
which they were not. During the night 
he sent, again and again, for reinforce- 
ments, which were persistently withheld, 
and at dawn he pluckily prepared to de- 
fend the position as best he might with 
the remainder of his own army-corps. 

Trist had said that when Osman and 
Skobeleff met there would be war indeed, 
and the result proved with terrible reality 
that he had spoken naught else but the 
truth. 

At daybreak the fight began again. 
The restless Turkish leader had made all 
his arrangements during the night. Ex- 
posed as it was to a galling fire from all 
sides, it seemed impossible that the re- 
doubt could be held. But Skobeleff was 
there, and. under Skobeleff the Rus- 
sians have fought as they never fought 
before. 

At Turkish headquarters there was little 
or no anxiety, for the enemy could not 
afford to take another redoubt at such a 
cost, and so skilfully had the fortifications 


The Puzzle of Life 


2 57 

been planned, that there was no reason to 
suppose that further advances could be 
made more easily. 

“To-morrow,” Osman had said to his 
chief of staff, “ it must be retaken ! ” and 
the young officer merely nodded his head. 
Then with the pencil that he carried stuck 
into his fez above his eye, the Turkish 
commander proceeded to write out his 
instructions. 

At daybreak the fight began again, and 
the sun had not yet lost its matutinal rud- 
diness when the first organized attack was 
made. This was repulsed, and the same 
fate attended four subsequent attempts. 
No man but Skobeleff could have held 
that position for so long. As usual, there 
was something unique and original in his 
style of defence. He waited until the 
attacking force was almost within forty 
yards before firing, and then met them 
with one crashing volley, the sound of 
which rose to the firmament like the crack 
of doom. After that the roll of fire swept 
from side to side, from end to end, with a 


258 Suspense 

continuous grating rattle like the sweep 
of a scythe in hay. 

The short day was almost drawing to 
a close, when the remnant of the fifth 
attacking corps returned, baffled and dis- 
heartened. The sun had already dis- 
appeared behind a bank of purple cloud, 
through which gleamed bars of lurid gold 
low down upon the rounded hills. Over- 
head there was a shimmering haze of 
Indian red. It almost seemed as if the 
sky had caught the reflection of the blood- 
stained earth. 

To the ears of the Turks came the 
distant sound of voices hoarsely cheering. 
The sound was of no great strength, for 
Skobeleff himself had been voiceless all 
day, and the remainder — a mere handful 
of black-faced, wild madmen — were dry 
and parched. 

“ They must be nearly worn out,” said 
Osman quietly, upon receiving the latest 
report. “We will attack again, and take 
the redoubt before nightfall.” 

Tefik merely acquiesced without com- 


The Puzzle of Life 


259 


ment, as was his wont, and turned away 
to give his orders with a close precision 
which inspired great confidence in his 
subordinates. 

Presently he returned to where his 
chief was standing, not far removed from 
Theodore Trist, who was writing hard 
upon a gun-carriage. 

“ They want somebody to lead them,” 
said Tefik significantly. His contempt 
for the usual run of portly, comfortable 
Turkish line-officers was well known. 

Trist looked up and saw that the com- 
mander was looking at his subordinate 
with calmly questioning eyes. 

“ I,” said the Englishman, closing his 
note-book as he came forward, “will go 
for one.” 

“ And I, and I, and I ! ” came from all 
sides. Some were staff-officers, some civil- 
ians, some old men and some mere boys. 

“An Englishman,” said Tefik, with the 
faintest suggestion of a smile, “ is too val- 
uable to be refused ! It would make all 
the difference.” 


260 


Suspense 

“ I have been idle long enough,” an- 
swered Trist, in a voice laden with sup- 
pressed excitement. “ I cannot stand it 
any longer.” 

He closed his note-book, drew the 
elastic carefully over it, and raised his 
eyes to the strange, dishevelled group of 
men before him. The chief of this won- 
derful staff, Osman himself, held out his 
hand without a word, took the book, and 
dropped it into the pocket of his long 
blue cloak. 

Already the call of the bugle told that 
preparations were in course — that the 
commander’s orders were being executed. 

Before darkness lowered over the land 
the redoubt was again in the hands of the 
Turks. This is a matter of history — as 
also the fact that the flower of the Russian 
army lay all round Plevna for three months 
afterwards, and never gained an advan- 
tage equal to that which they had held for 
twenty-four hours. Osman was impreg- 
nable — Plevna unassailable, except by the 


The Puzzle of Life 261 

slower weapon of bodily hunger — grim 
starvation. 

It was nearly seven o’clock on the even- 
ing of the twelfth of September, before 
Tefik Bey, the grave young chief of staff, 
found time to visit the great double re- 
doubt which had cost the Russian army 
over five thousand lives. 

Accompanied by an orderly bearing a 
simple paraffin hurricane-lamp, he made 
his laborious way over the heaps of dead. 
Upon the hill above the redoubt the Turks 
lay in thousands. There were rows of 
them, shoulder to shoulder as they had 
charged, marking the effect of Skobeleff’s 
terrible volleys. Below the defence, upon 
the lower slope, the Russians covered the 
earth, and in the redoubt itself Moslem 
and Christian lay entangled in the throes 
of death. They were literally piled on 
the top of each other — a very storehouse 
of the dead — for the Russians had fought 
all day standing upon the bodies of the 
slain. Now the ready Turks trampled 
countryman and foe alike beneath their 


262 


Suspense 

feet, for it was by no means certain that 
an attempt might not be made at once to 
regain the coveted position. 

While crossing a ditch, that had been 
hastily cut by the Russians, Tefik stopped 
suddenly. 

“ Give me the lantern ! ” he said; in a 
peculiar short way. 

Then he stooped over the body of a 
man who lay face downwards upon the 
blood-soaked turf. 

“Turn him over! ” 

The flame of the hurricane-lamp flick- 
ered ruddily, and lighted up a calm, bland 
face. The firm lips were slightly parted 
in a smile, which seemed to be, in some 
subtle way, interrogative in its tendency. 
The eyes were wide open, but not un- 
pleasantly so, and their expression was 
one of meek, gentle surprise. The whole 
incongruous face as it reposed there, look- 
ing upwards to its Creator, seemed to say, 
“ Why?” 

Tefik rose to his full height. 

“Trist,” he murmured, with a little 


The Puzzle of Life 263 

shake of the head. “ Ah ! but that is a 
pity — a thousand pities !” 

He stood with the lamp in his hand, 
gazing upwards at the stars, now peeping 
out in the rifts of heavy cloud. Uncon- 
sciously he had turned his grave young 
eyes to the West — towards civilization 
and England. 

After a moment he turned and went 
on his way, stumbling in the dark over 
the dead and wounded. 


264 


Suspense 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE END OF IT ALL 

LL through the rough autumn, and 



on into midwinter, Plevna held out. 
All the world waited and watched, sym- 
pathizing, as is its way, with the side 
where sheer pluck seems predominant. 

At Wyl’s Hall, Mrs. Wylie and Brenda 
lived on in their quiet way; and, to these 
two, life soon assumed a calm, unruffled 
regularity. Small local incidents took to 
themselves a greater importance, and the 
larger events of the world reached them 
only as an echo. 

As Winter laid its hand with increasing 
power over the land, so Wyvenwich found 
itself day by day more isolated from the 
world, until one morning in the middle of 
December the last link was severed. A 
great fall of snow, driven across the North 
Sea, besieged the Eastern counties, and 


The End of it All 265 

for a time paralyzed all workers. The 
coastguards could do nothing, for they 
were hemmed in by great drifts on Miz- 
zenheath Moor. The boats were full of 
snow, the roads impassable, and the small 
branch railroad hopelessly blocked by 
drifts, sixteen feet deep in parts. 

During five days, no news of the outer 
world reached Wyvenwich, until at last 
a signalman, whose occupation was gone 
by reason of the snowed-up railway, made 
his way on foot from the junction on the 
main-line, carrying the mail-bag on his 
shoulders. 

This man brought the five-days-old 
news of the fall of Plevna. 

It was almost mid-day before the post- 
bag was delivered at Wyl’s Hall, and the 
two ladies were sitting in the broad-win- 
dowed library when the servant brought 
it to them. There was a heap of unfin- 
ished needlework upon the table, for it 
will be easily understood that such a 
woman as the widow would be able to 
find good work to do in a hard winter. 


266 


Suspense 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed the good lady, throw- 
ing her work aside — “ letters at last ! ” 

The servant smiled sympathetically, and 
left the room. The key of the bag was 
soon taken from its hiding-place in an 
ornament on the mantelpiece, and Mrs. 
Wylie shook out the letters upon the 
table. 

“ It is delightful,” she exclaimed, “ to be 
in communication with the outer . . .” 

Suddenly she stopped, and laid the old 
leather bag aside slowly. 

There were two thin brown envelopes 
among the white ones ; also a larger one 
bearing a foreign stamp, and carrying 
evident marks of a long journey. This 
was addressed to Brenda, as were the two 
telegrams. 

“. . . Outer world,” said Mrs. Wylie, 
in a peculiar breathless way, finishing her 
interrupted remark with determination. 
“ There are . . . two telegrams ... for 
you, Brenda.” 

The girl took the envelopes without 
comment, and opened one, dropping it 


The End of it All 267 

subsequently upon the floor while unfold- 
ing the pink paper. She read the message 
without a change of countenance, while 
Mrs. Wylie made a pretence of being 
interested in her own letters. In the 
same manner Brenda opened the second 
telegram. 

After she read it, there was a horrible 
silence in the room, while the elder woman 
stood nervously reading the address of a 
letter to herself over and over again. 

Then Brenda spoke in a clear voice, 
which bore no resemblance to her usual 
tones at all. 

“ Theo Trist is dead,” she said. “ He 
was killed on the twelfth of September 
at Plevna ! ” 

The widow held out her hand, and took 
the two telegrams. They were from the 
great London editor — one telling of a 
rumour, the second confirming it. Brenda 
had read the confirmation first. 

At last Mrs. Wylie raised her eyes to 
her companion’s face, and following the 
direction of the girl’s gaze, she remem- 


268 Suspense 

bered the large, ill-used envelope bearing 
a foreign stamp. 

“ That letter,” she whispered, trembling 
with downright fear. 

“ Yes,” answered Brenda, with the same 
sickening composure. “ It is from him.” 

Then she took it and turned away to 
the window. 

Without exactly knowing what she was 
doing, Mrs. Wylie sat down again in the 
chair she had vacated on the advent of 
the post-bag. Her lips moved as she 
stared stupidly at the work tossed aside 
on the table. 

“ O God ! ” she was whispering, “ give 
her strength ! ” 

It seemed hours that she sat there 
without daring to raise her eyes. She 
heard Brenda break open the envelope 
and unfold the paper, which crackled 
loudly. Then there came no sound at all 
except at times a suppressed rustle as a 
page was turned. 

At last the girl moved, turning and 
coming towards her companion. 


The End of it All 269 

“There . . she said gently, “you may 
as well read it.” 

She laid the closely written sheets upon 
the table, for Mrs. Wylie did not hold out 
her hand, and turned again towards the 
window, where she stood looking out 
upon the gleaming snow. 

After a space, Mrs. Wylie took up the 
letter and read it dreamily, without com- 
prehending its full meaning — without 
realizing that the hand which had directed 
the clear, firm pen would never write 
another word. It ran as follows: 

“ Dear Brenda, — It may be that the 
long confinement in this grim slaughter- 
house has upset my nerve, or it may, per- 
haps, be that I am not so hard or so 
plucky as I was. Be that as it may, I am 
going to break through a resolution to 
which I have held ever since I took to the 
warpath. It was my intention to wait until 
the end of this campaign before telling 
you that I have always loved you — that 
I have always looked up to you as my 


2jo Suspense 

ideal of a brave, true woman. I never 
doubted that my love for you was and is 
a strong, firm reality, as all the factors in 
my life, have been. I never doubted its 
truth, its honesty, and its permanency — 
but these very qualities held it back. 
If I had loved you less, I could have 
asked you to be the wife of a war-corre- 
spondent (and one whose reputation was 
such that he could not afford to be found 
in the background). This, Brenda, has 
been my secret ever since I left college — 
ever since I followed the irresistible incli- 
nation which led me on to the battlefield. 
It is unnecessary to dwell now upon the 
effort that I have had to make a thousand 
times to conceal my feelings. I used to 
think (and tried to persuade myself that I 
hoped) that you would marry someone 
infinitely worthier of you — someone who 
was richer, and wiser, and cleverer, and 
someone whose profession was less haz- 
ardous ; but in the last year or two I have 
conceived the wild notion that there was 
a reason in your persistent blindness to 


The End of it All 


271 

the merits of men calculated in every way 
to make you happy. Gradually I came 
round to the belief that you understood, 
in some subtle way, the policy I was pur- 
suing, and in this belief Mrs. Wylie per- 
sistently encouraged me in that cheery, 
inimitable way of hers. If I have made a 
gross mistake, you and Mrs. Wylie must 
let me know as mercifully as you can. 
I leave my case in your hands, dear. 
But I feel confident that I am right. 
Rashness of conclusion, hastiness of 
action, have never been ascribed to me, 
and it is only after long consideration — 
after placing the circumstances persist- 
ently before myself in their very worst 
light — that I have taken to myself the 
comforting thought that I can make your 
life a happy one (as lives go) if you will 
trust it to me. We are not strangers, 
Brenda, but have known each other since 
we could first stand, and we have always 
been good friends. As I have grown 
from youth to manhood, my love for you 
has grown also in strength and sureness. 


272 Suspense 

I have never doubted it for a moment, 
though I may have hesitated as to its 
wisdom. Perhaps I may have caught 
from you a habit of setting both sides 
of a question upon a footing inconven- 
iently similar, and the result has been an 
honest conviction that you could do better 
than marry me. Now that conviction has 
given way to another — namely, that I 
simply cannot do without you — cannot 
get on at all, except it be at your own 
express wish that I should. Circumstances 
have now changed. I have been fortu- 
nate in making a name, and in escaping 
many risks to which others have fallen 
victims. I can command my own price, 
and make my own conditions. Alto- 
gether, I am now in a position such as an 
honourable man could ask his wife to 
share. As soon as this campaign (my 
last) is over, I shall hurry home to you. 
After all, my resolution has not collapsed 
entirely, for this letter cannot leave here 
until an end of some sort come upon us. 
We are like rats in a trap, but the courage 


The End of it All 


2 73 


of these men is something wonderful. I 
shall have much to tell you when I get 
back, for I am the sole historian of events 
inside Plevna. In the meantime, dear, I 
dare to call myself 

“Your lover, 

“ Theodore Trist. 

“ Plevna, 7th September, 1877.” 

Mrs. Wylie looked again at the sig- 
nature in a curious, mechanical way, as 
if verifying it. “ Theodore Trist.” Two 
simple words in bold abruptness without 
flourish, scroll, or ornament. A clear run- 
ning caligraphy, strong and plain, rapid, 
legible, straightforward and purposeful, 
fresh from the fingers now still in death. 

The last time the name was ever 
written by its possessor was at the foot of 
that letter to Brenda. 

The girl herself stood at the window 
looking over the snow-clad moorland to 
the gray sea. Her back was turned 
towards the room ; her white hands hung 
motionless at her side. Near to her the 
telegrams lay on a small tabic, half un- 

18 


274 Suspense 

folded, disclosing their short brutality of 
diction. 

Outside, the sun shone down on the 
glancing sea. The waves gleamed white, 
and on the shingle sang their everlasting 
song. All the world was fair. The sea- 
birds whirled in mid-air, and shrieked 
fantastically for very joy. They had no 
thought of their own end — no doubts as 
to the purpose of their creation — no 
question as to the wisdom of their 
Creator. Only man — the lord of all 
the earth — has these ! 


THE END. 













































NOV 23 1899 














